Oh, and to the original question of the thread, yes I suicided and it worked out, but no, it's not recommended, it is risky.

Plus, you have no chance of being a QA, so you hurt yourself twice.

Why does suiciding persist?
 

Sometimes PNM are under the false assumption that by suiciding they will somehow increase the odds that they will get the chapter they put down. I've had to explain to PNM that that is NOT how it works.

But, and it's not that I'm pro-SIPing, if you really don't want your second and third group, it's probably not a good idea to list them just to try to increase your chances of being a QA, especially if one or both of the second and third groups are smaller than your first choice group.

(If you don't really want the 2nd and 3rd group and you list them just to increase the chances of QA at #1, you're basically betting that all three groups will match to quota before you get a bid and that your #1 group will still be eligible for QAs when they get to your name. I don't think it's a good bet in the age of release figures. Back in the olden days when groups invited as many people back as they wanted and preffed a full three-times-quota, it might have happened, but today, if you pref three groups, you are probably high enough on someone's list to match in regular matching, but there is no guarantee that it's your first choice.)

But if your are thinking of "suiciding" you really have to ask yourself, "would I rather not be Greek than join these other groups?" and the answers has to be "100% yes."

It seems that there's an increase in SIPing from what my daughters and other active Greeks are telling me. A lot of it is apparently coming from schools who require you to attend the maximum numbers of parties you've been invited to. I can see that this could be a good thing but not if you force women to even go to prefs where they don't want to be! (I did a thread on this somewhere.) If a woman has attended several sets of parties and she KNOWS she can't stand ABC (we're not talking about the women who are unsure), then why try to force her to pledge?

If a school forces a PNM to attend a party at a group she hates and no way would she pledge it, then PH has no business penalizing her if she SIPs. I really think this is also why I keep hearing about so many women who don't show up at their houses on Bid Day or depledge within days....a few years back, you didn't hear of that as much as you do now.

Carnation,

I think I understand what you are saying, but the only "penalty" that I've heard of for SIP (at the type of school you describe where you have to go to all the events) is that you aren't eligible for QAs. Have you heard of other penalties?

To me, saying you have to go back to the max. you are invited to, but you don't have to list all the chapters on the bid card is about right.

As far as losing QA potential, we can't create a system where we try to allow girls to be matched to their first choice as long as they go to pref there or we'll be kind of throwing quota out the window, won't we?

So, short of matching everyone to her first choice after prefs, aren't we always going to be faced with girls having to decide between SIPing or facing the possibility that she may not like her second or third choice group as much?

Is there a way that you think it can be fixed? Or is it that you get a little tired of all the focus being on girls matching to groups, rather than matching to groups that they really like?

(I'm always impressed by the numbers of girls who do match at their first choices. They tend to be the vast majority, so at least that's good.)

When I was in college, I knew a girl who suicided one house and didn't get a bid. She was #1 on another sorority's list, however, and she was contacted and allowed to join that other house. She did. Would they even allow anything like that now that everything is computerized and all?

That's not out of the ordinary. It's mainly how snap bids work.

I suicided Sigma Kappa, which was a really risky thing to do, but it worked out in the end. :D

The don't suicide if it's computerized I think came about because some of the computer programs kick you out completely if you don't put the max amount down. You know, kind of like they said on the SATs it was better to guess than leave it blank because a blank hole really screwed up the works or something. There are schools where you're not eligible for snap bids or QAs if you suicide, but that would be their rule even if they hand matched. HTH :)

Wuh? In my SAT prep classes we were always told not to guess because a wrong anwer hurt you more than no answer at all.

You're correct. A blank answer is worth zero points but the wrong answer subtracts a quarter of a point from your score so guessing is not encouraged! I never liked that idea.

There are just so many reasons why people do this.

For many girls, it has to do with who's left on their dance card, so to speak. If it's ABC, DEF and XYZ, and the only house she really wants is ABC, while the 2 other chapters are much weaker at her school, she's going to think long and hard before giving the other 2 a chance.

In my years in the recruitment advising role, I saw just about everything. SIPing because of hard core dirty rushing--especially rampant on a deferred rec. campus where PH enforcement is weak. SIPing because she was a sophomore and only wanted to be in her friends' sorority. SIPing because she was not willing to commit to the other choice(s). I've seen girls SIP when she only has 1 strong house in comparison to the others, and I've seen it happen when all of the houses are strong but the girls only want what they want. It happens when PNMs travel in packs and follow what the others are doing. It also happens when PNMs are highly independent and for whatever reason decide it's not worth the time to shop around.

I did not SIP because after pref, I seriously could have seen myself in either of the 2 houses. My roommate, on the other hand, SIP'ed the house we both ultimately pledged and she did it in an earlier round. She just didn't like the other house (glamour girls) and wasn't interested in their sales pitch (she was this amazing supermodel type--boy, that killed them).

I did. It was during informal recruitment during the spring, I don't think all of the chapters were taking pledge classes, and the other sorority that I was interested in also had their parties at the same time as axid. In hindsight, I think it was foolish (don't get me wrong - i love axid - but i think it's better to go through formal recruitment and really get to see all of the chapters), but it worked out in the end :)