A blessing not a burden?

What a thread title. I expected to click in and read someone so distraught over their physical height they were about to do themselves in.

I would never advise suiciding but if come downs to pref night and you know that if you got a bid from XYZ you WOULDN'T accept it, then I would say go ahead and suicide. Just because that chapter weren't your first choice they could have been someone else's and I would rather another girl get a bid who wants to be there then someone who's heart is somewhere. Just remember to stay open minded give every chapter a chance. If you get a bid from a chapter that wasn't your first choice try it out you may end up finding out that chapter was actually the best one for you, and if it isn't then well at least you gave it a shot.

At least I wasn't the only one. I expected: "Hi, I want to be an ABC, but I hear they only take girls over 5'9". Should I just end it now?"

*ETA Clarification: I'm talking about a competitive campus with large chapters.*

I don't normally advocate "suiciding" because I believe that a PNM can find friends and a home in almost any chapter. It's in the PNM's best interest to keep an open mind. If you wind up with a bid from your least favorite, you should still give them a chance. You only met a handful of members during Recruitment. There are so many more that you might click with. You may end up falling in love and happy that the stars aligned that way.

But if a PNM knows with 100% certainty that she would never accept a bid at XYZ, then don't list them on your Pref Card. You could end up taking a Bid away from someone else who would truly love to be an XYZ. Plus, that leaves the chapter scrambling to snap or COR to fill their pledge class.

I read this and it reminded me of a girl that was in my IIX group. She visited 3 sororities on pref day and when bid day came she received a bid to her 3rd choice. she was obviously upset and she shed a few tears but she now LOVES her chapter and is still a very active sister :) I think she realized that the first two houses were not who she really was and the 3rd choice was where she fit perfectly all along.

I won't go into the suicide issue cause there are many variables.

As for the dress issue - I am tall and feeling you on the everything looks hoochie (esp if your legs in particular are long). Ditch the shorter pieces.

If I missed the part where others addressed the maximizing options advantages, apologies.

To the OP:
-Some campuses Guarantee that if you "maximize your options" (meaning that you attend all of the parties that you are invited to, and list the maximum number of houses on your Bid Card) you will get a bid to a house. This means that if, for some reason, you wouldn't normally be matched to a chapter, you will get hand-placed back into the system.
-It's my understanding that some campuses will place you as a Quota Addition to your first choice if you weren't matched in the normal bid-matching process if you maximize your options. They will not if you ISP.
-I *believe* that if you ISP, and you are not on your first choice chapter's First Bid List, you will not be matched.

Basically, beyond just the "better chances with more options" concept, there are other disadvantages to ISP. Local Panhellenic bodies strongly discourage it, and often create incentives to NOT ISP.

Anyone, feel free to correct if something looks inaccurate.

Me, too. Never hurts to have a sick sense of humor!

Question: I'm unfamiliar with the three Pref Party situation. What if I only would accept an invitation to TWO of the three, but not the third? Is that still ISP?

When I went through Recruitment (and I believe this is still the case), only putting 2 sororities down when you attended 3 pref parties was not considered "maximizing your options", and therefore you were not eligible for Quota Additions or snap bidding.

So I guess it differs between schools.

I'm just glad to hear that Todd Anthony Shaw is OK.

This is correct, but missing some info. If a CPC (collegiate panhellenic council) is using RFM (release figure method), then the quota additions will be in effect. That means that if a PNM "maximizes her options" through the ENTIRE process, she will be eligible for being a quota addition if necessary.

I'll elaborate. A PNM should attend as many parties as she is able to, which means either all the ones to which she's invited, or as many as she is allowed for that round in the event she gets invited to more than she can attend. So if for round 2 she is invited to 9 and she is allowed to go to 7, then she should attend all 7 that she is allowed to go to. Or if she's invited to 5 and she can attend 7, she should attend all 5. If she follows this process throughout recruitment, and then at the end of recruitment, she lists all the sororities whose preference parties she attended on her card, she is eligible for quota additions.

Quota additions are the CPC's way of making sure that PNMs get matched the best way possible, and QAs make it very, very hard for a PNM to get cross-cut. In this situation, the way a PNM would get cross-cut is if she did not list all the sororities on her card to which she was invited, which could be ISP, or could be just listing 2 of the 3.

But generally, QAs work like this: after initial bid matching is done, they look at the pool of women who have not yet been matched. Since all women who attend preference must appear somewhere on a chapter's bid list that is submitted to the CPC (this is an NPC agreement), the women in the pool appear somewhere on the list. A new round of matching bids starts as though the chapters had not yet reached quota, just like the regular bid matching is done. So sorority XYZ might reach quota, but then they have another x number of women on the XYZ bid list, and lo-and-behold the person who is second from the top of that remaining list has not matched yet because her top 3 choices already have quota (of which XYZ is number 1, in this example). So she becomes a quota addition to sorority XYZ. NPC has determined that all member organizations must accept quota additions. That means that if XYZ doesn't really want her, they should never invite her to their preference party.

I can't restate it enough. The PNM who does not maximize her options during EVERY round of recruitment is not eligible to be a quota addition. So it is in the PNMs best interest to keep an open mind. And it is in the sorority's best interest to abide by the release figures that are given to them, and to be judicious in the invitations to each round of parties.

Now, having said all that, it is possible for a PNM to ISP and get invited to her top sorority even if she is not on their first bid list. Mathematically, though, it is very very very difficult, and it depends on where the PNM is on the second bid list and how all the rest of first-list bid matching goes, what the other PNMs put on their preference cards, what the other sororities have on their bid lists, and so on. I'm sure an RFM specialist has the exact percentage chance at hand, as I do not, but I would guess it's under a 10% chance, depending on the size of the campus and the number of women going through recruitment, as well as those other things I mentioned. You probably have a better chance of rolling a 6 on a die. I guess it boils down to are you, as a PNM, willing to take the chance of getting no bid at all and being left out of sorority life, compared to getting your second or third choice and finding out that it was actually a great thing?

Another thing to consider, OP, is your campus. Is it a campus in which you will almost never get a bid returning through recruitment or COB if you have already rushed? In that case, you really have nothing to lose by listing all chapters on your bid card and NOT suiciding...because you will not get a chance again to make your first choice chapter.

Precisely! It took me months to realize that the chapter I had originally really, really wanted wasn't everything I thought they were. Turns out a week just wasn't long enough, and that what I wanted out of a chapter was a little different from what the tent talking girls thought made a good chapter.

A couple girls in my chapter found out a few months back that one of our favorite sisters had actually put my chapter last on her preference form. We were all shocked. She faked it till she made it, put on a happy face and did her best to carve a niche within the chapter. Now, she is very popular within the chapter and loved for her bright attitude and her way of having fun even when we're all about to go loopy from exhaustion. How awful would it have been if she hadn't listed my chapter at all?

Don't be afraid to maximize your options, PNMs!

This is such a wonderful example of why to list all chapters on your pref card. Sometimes the place you aren't sure you'll fit in will be the right place for you.