You need to get a bid before you get initiated.

So remind me...

If a PNM goes through every round, attends every party she can, receives only one Pref invite, attends, and puts that group on her bid list...

Is there any way under RFM that she doesn't get a bid to that pref chapter?

If it's discovered that she does not meet the sorority's requirements re grades or character.

The important part of your post is bolded.

Yes, things can and do happen.... nothing is 100% guaranteed.

ETA: ^^^ What 33 said..... :)

This is something I don't quite understand. In the old system, did Annie Aardvark have a better chance of getting a bid to XYZ if they had all the PNMs who attended their preference rank them as number one than Zoe Zipper? Because XYZ would have reached quota way before they got to the letter Z?

It didn't matter if the PNMs were in alpha order. Chapters had a 1st bid list & a second bid list. It mattered where Penny PNM was listed on which bid list. If Penny PNM listed XYZ 1st on her bid card and she was anywhere on their 1st bid list, she was matched with XYZ.

After XYZ's first bid list matched to quota, then they didn't go to their 2nd bid list. If they still had spaces available, it got a little more complicated... which I leave to someone else! Alphabetical order still didn't matter, though.

Actually, it depends. For instance, if quota is 10 and all 10 of those women plus one more lists XYZ first (and those are the ONLY women listing them as #1), then the 11th one from an alpha standpoint will lose out....but could be a QA under RFM. Under the old method, that would remain to be seen on the way everything else fleshed out. Just one of many reasons why RFM is better...it takes these things into account.

But as well know, bid lists and rankings don't go that way normally. This would be an odd situation. However, if everyone who attended XYZs pref put them first, the folks on the 2nd list would stand a statistically smaller chance of being matched to them.

Hope all that makes sense. It does in my head! I actually worked a hand bid matching where a group closed out their first bid list in toto before we had gone all the way thru the cards the first time. Only time I've ever seen it happen. Think they weren't targeting their audience?!?!

I once participated in a hand-matching session where the acknowledged top dogs on campus actually had 6 girls on their first bid list who put them second. The "top dogs" had a fit right there in the room and claimed that something illegal must have happened.

Months later, they were still mourning the loss of those 6. "I swear, I would put my own pin on 'Jane Doe' if she could still pledge us." (The girl had been initiated into another group months earlier and I still remember her real name because the top dogs would NOT shut up about her.)

Those darn Aardvark's think they are so special and can be at the top of everyone's list.

^^^That's an awesome story!

OMG! Give it up, ladies!

In the one I mentioned, the group who pledged all their first list graciously offered to take all the ones who were "left over" after the matching was done since they all had put them first. We demurred and said that we stand by the NPC QA requirement - 5% of quota only as QAs. That ended up leaving one girl not matching when out of the blue, group #3 (whom she had put second and who was not on their original bid list at all) suddenly "found" her on their list! Strange things happened in hand bid matching sessions.

I have to say, I'm glad we are no longer in the era of hand matching. God bless technology.
I guess it wouldn't be bad for a small number, but for those schools that have 1000 or more PNM's, hand matching would SUCK!

To clarify about the "not guaranteed" you should understand that the girls who attend a preference party but are dropped are so minimal as to be zero. Yes, it CAN happen (the girl is a huge bitch at the preference party, it comes out and is verified that she is a serial killer), but very much not likely. As far as you need to be concerned, if you attend every party to which you are invited (even if it's only 1) you WILL have a bid on bid day.

People here want to be completely accurate and the rule is no sorority has to take a member they don't want (except at 1 school to go unmentioned), but the reality is you seriously have to torpedo your own rush to have that happen if you made it all the way to preference. The chapters will have voted for you 3 times before preference. All the last night is for, really, is to 1-close the sale and 2-put the list in order (which is done by a very small group of women). So relax, have fun and be happy with whatever you get come bid day. You will be better off in the long run.

^^^Like this story!

Maybe I’m misreading this, but if 11 women ranked XYZ first and quota is 10, wouldn’t only 10 women be listed - in alpha order - on XYZ’s first bid list? And as such, the woman who did not make XYZ’s first bid list (i.e. the 11th woman) would be ranked on their second bid list.

So if this is true, then it shouldn’t matter where she fell alphabetically as she was never on XYZ’s first bid list and XYZ met quota before it had to move to the second bid list.