I agree! I will be doing hand bid matching next week and it is a thrill to say "match" over and over again. With hand matching, though, you need to maintain a good poker face, because you don't want to show your excitement or disappointment throughout the process.

I do have a question about listing only one sorority...

Our panhellenic only let us list the sororities whose preference parties we attended. Since I only attended one, I was forced to suicide. Let's say quota was 25, and I was 24 on the bid list and 35 on the alpha list, it's plausible then that I didn't recieve a bid due to my placement on the alpha list and the fact that I only listed one sorority? Not looking for any sort of sugar-coated pat on the back, just trying to understand how this works!

Man, that's some complicated stuff.

Hi Soliloquy,

You would only be on the bid list once. You are either on Bid list A which would include the top 25 girls the chapter wants in alphabetical order (the same number as quota.) Bid list B lists the remaining girls you invited to pref in order of how much you want them as sisters. If you did not match with the group, then you were not on Bid list A. They must have made quota before they reached your name on Bid list B. Listing only one group on your pref card when you only were invited to one party is not suiciding (I was in the same boat.) You did maximize your options. Does your campus not do quota additions? Any word on COB?

Angel

They didn't do quota additions, which was rather unfortunate because a lot of girls went without a bid. That's part of the reason I'm trying to understand bid matching. Perhaps they didn't calculate quota correctly or something, because on most campuses if you go to prefs- you will get a bid. However, I'm pretty sure we all just had bad luck as to where our names were listed and how we were matched.

Every chapter on campus is at total, so there won't be any COB events. There is a chance for winter informal, but that won't be known until sometime in November or December.

Oh and I think I remember reading someplace that cross-cutting is a myth. Would I be correct in that assumption or can it really happen?

it is interesting(and unfortunate) that there were no quota additions.

i believe that cross cutting(mismatching) happens.

hopefully there will be some chapters who have a few slots open up in january, and i hope you are invited to their events!

Quota is simply calculated by the number of women invited to prefs divided by the number of groups on campus. Unfortunately, it doesn't take into account how many women are pref'ing each group. If a lot of women only have one group, and that group fills prior to their name being called, they will not get a bid. Dividing it up this way seems like it would account for everyone, but it can't. Remember, these groups are often competing for the same women. It's a shame your campus doesn't do quota additions, but it's likely that they don't want to raise campus total. Sounds like you could use another group on campus. You might ask if they are open for expansion. The Greek Life office would know this.

With the new release figure method, a quota range is calculated. They can actually run the numbers using different figures for quota to find which places the maximum number of women...and that is the goal.

I stand corrected. I didn't know that about the new release figures. I wonder if her campus uses them?

cross-cutting myth
 

It depends on what you think "cross-cutting" is. It is possible to:
1. Be released from all chapters on your campus before preference.
2. Not match due to suiciding.
3. Not match if you were low on all chapters' bid lists and your school does not guarantee a match for women who maximize their options through quota additions.

It is NOT possible for the outcome of matching or not matching to depend on the order of your listed chapters (assuming maximized options). For example:

Say a PNM lists Alpha first, Beta second, and Gamma third. She is very low on Alpha and Betas' lists but high on Gamma's list. The "cross-cutting myth" is that she won't be matched because of the order in which she listed her chapters. In this case, the PNM would match to Gamma regardless of whether she listed them first, second or third. When I say the PNM is "very low" on Alpha and Beta's lists, I mean that they fill quota before getting to her name on the list.

I think it's more of a balance between placing women and chapters making quota. Theoretically, a campus Panhellenic could place all of the women if they made quota very high, because everyone would just get their first choice. But not all chapters would make quota. If quota were very low, then all chapters could make quota, but there would be a lot of unmatched women. I think a campus Panhellenic takes both into consideration.

I completely agree. This may have happened in the era of hand matching when people made mistakes, but now the computer programs are fairly simple and don't make that kind of mistake. It's not hard to go back and shift the bids for Gamma to move PNM1 into their NM class if she is higher on the list than PNM2 regardless of where Gamma is on her list (if, of course, her higher prefs fill first!)

This is what I was referring to. An active I know said a girl went bidless due to cross-cutting, and she was referring to that term in the same way you created your example. I was pretty sure it was a myth as described!

All the chapters at my school had the same amount of girls pledge, so I don't know if they adhered to the quota range.

Thanks to everyone for explaining, I appreciate it!

Hi I have a question and I am hoping someone can help. I rushed this week. Went to seven sororities the first day. Then ranked my top five and my two alternates. I went the second day and received all of my top five and had great conversations and was told I was ranked straight 10's by one sorority by each girl who met me. Then the third day before rush I get a phone call telling me that I did not get a bid from one sorority including my two alternates. Is that possible? I feel like their must be an error.

Yes, it is possible. This assumes that I understand your post correctly as follows.

You did not receive any invitations past the second day of parties, correct? You did not attend preference round at any chapters, correct?

Yes It is that I did not receive an invite to any of my top three choices nor my two alternates on the third day. When the second day I received all five of my choices.

The girl who told me I received all 10's on a scale from 0-10 was in the sorority and spoke to each member separately and they assured her that is what they ranked me. I just don't understand how I could not match up with one of the them.

I understand what you are saying. But this girl had no reason to lie to me. So it does happen that you can be cut from all your choices? I talked to my rho gamma and she thinks it is weird and she is completely shocked that it happened to. I am not trying to sound cocky or anything but I did have great conversations with all the girls and I am just wondering if this is something I should look into to appealing?

Generally speaking, if there TRULY is a technical error with bids, chapters try to rectify it as soon as possible (e.g. if ABC knows for certain that Julie matched with them and somehow, Julie gets told that she was cut, chances are good that ABC will contact Julie ASAP and let her know of the mistake and get her bid to her.)

To my knowledge, you cannot "appeal" a lack of invites.

And yes, it does happen that women can be cut from all choices. I don't believe it's something that happens a whole lot, but it does happen.

I'm not going to say much about membership selection, but suffice it to say that one woman with a bad impression of you can have a much greater effect than ten who think you are great. That one woman need not be an active collegian at this particular chapter.

Other possibilities:

1) You were dropped for grades
2) You didn't have recs at a school that requires recs
3) The chapter made a mistake in preparing their invite list

Getting dropped from all chapters is rare, in most formal recruitments, if you attended all parties to which you were invited and generally had good manners, etc. However, it does happen. I would have to assume that the Greek Advisor or someone like that double-checked the invite lists before you received the phone call.

ALL THAT SAID...sometimes women fall through the cracks, and chapters may have liked you, but just had more great girls than invites to give out. If you are truly just the unlucky PNM who didn't match this time around, nothing should preclude you from giving it another shot.

I know you are upset. You are asking questions that go into membership selection, and we do not discuss that here.

And we are not at your school, and we do not know every detail that might have entered into your being released from recruitment.

University of Miami is pretty competitive for a non-Southern school, isn't it? In my experience it isn't uncommon for several girls to get cross cut before preference at competitive schools.

And by "cross cut" you mean released from recruitment, right? It has another meaning which implies a mistake was made.

To skkx3, at many schools the biggest releases are made after the second party. I'm sorry you weren't given the opportunity to join a group. I know it's tough. Take the next few days to just be good to yourself. When it's not so painful, if you want to try again, try to examine what might have gone wrong. Examine your entire resume-- are your grades good, how was your appearance, reputation, extra-curricular activities, etc. If you want, contact the Greek Life Office to see if anyone is doing COB. Sometimes great girls really do just fall through the cracks, but sometimes they just need a little more polish. Good luck.

Yes. Cross cut = not invited back to any chapters in a round; completely released from recruitment.

OP was a sophomore so that could also have something to do with it if Miami has a bias toward freshmen.

Yeah, that's my point...it's not what cross cut means. Cross cut refers to bid matching. There was an old rumor that you could be "cross cut" from all chapters on your bid list if you didn't rank the chapters you pref'd in order of how badly they wanted you. It didn't work that way, but many people don't understand the bid matching concept.

I've never heard any other definition of cross cut than the one I used.

If you keep an open mind to EVERY chapter, it's pretty difficult to not get a bid at UM.

You haven't been around long enough.:D It's an old term and generally means a mistake was made with bid matching. Here's a link for you http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...light=crosscut

Hi thanks everyone for all of the advice. I am not sure what could have happened. I have a 3.3 gpa, I heard you don't need rec's at University of Miami, I am involved in three different organizatons, two which I hold positions in. I had an open mind and would have liked to get into any of them. I actually didn't have a preference like other girls, because I liked all of them. I am a sophomore so I do not know if that is why it happened.

One of the problems may be that you ranked two chapters lowest early on that may have been more likely to keep you. Who knows? The fact that the more desirable chapters kept you for that extra day may have been the kiss of death for your recruitment since you couldn't continue on with the other two. This is why we even have RFM now days to prevent this from happening, but sometimes it still does. Like I said, sometimes good girls still do fall through the cracks. Check after recruitment and see if any of the chapters are doing COB to fill any remaining spots. Please do not take this as an indictment of you. Decisions are made quickly on little information, and if you asked anyone in these chapters about you, they'd probably have something good to say about you. Recruitment can be tough, and decisions to release PNMs can be made by a razor's edge.

Pardon the lane swerve, but I know a girl this (almost) happened to. During rush she hadn't been cut at all and was invited back to every sorority she wanted. The day before pref you can go to five chapters, and then pref is two. She went to five, four of which are the classic "Top 4" at this campus, and one is a middle tier. Right before pref she was dropped from all four of the Top 4 but luckily did receive a bid to the middle tier. But if it was structured the way it had been the year before and the year after (4 to 2), she would have likely had the four most competitive sororities before pref and then not receive a single invite to pref despite not being cut prior.

So I can see situations where girls coast right on by the early rounds with no cuts, cut groups that actually might want to pledge her, and then be cut by their remaining groups.

Yeah, this really was a huge problem before RFM when chapters could keep as many women around until Pref, when anyone they invited had to be on their bid list. Even now, some women do still fall through the cracks and some chapters do too. I know some chapters that think they have a lock on the "top girls" in recruitment up to the day before prefs when those girls have to cut down to a minimum number and all the sudden those girls pick other groups. (They go from 99 or 100% returns to 60% returns when PNMs suddenly can only go back to 2 or 3 parties.) If the chapter wasn't smart enough to keep around safety picks, they may not have enough women to make quota. It goes both ways. I think PNMs and chapters should really think strategically when ranking because you really don't know where you stand against your competition and the margins can be really slim.

Yes your definition is the standard. I wonder if in the current RFM people are using it to mean being cut (a)cross the board.

Wouldn't it just be easier to say "released from recruitment"?

No way that's got six syllables, plus it doesn't sound nearly as dramatic. Old terminology often sticks around and gets repurposed, so it's not surprising. I don't actually know that that is what happening, just postulating.

/tired.

Maybe so. It's weird since it's one of those terms used to describe a myth so its use now for being released is kinda confusing.

I'm wondering if having 2 chapters on suspension kind of threw everyone else off. Maybe they over-invited the first 2 days because they were used to lower return rates due to competition with 2 additional chapters. When they did make their big cuts, they may have gone overboard and cut too many.

Do look into COB. If there's someone not at chapter total, you might still be able to find a way in. Good luck! I'm sorry for your unsuccessful recruitment.

Thank you I am looking into informal recruitment and hopefully I will have better luck with that. One more thing, my freshman year I was at another school and I pledged a sorority then but did not go through with initiation because I found out I was transferring and wanted to rush at University of Miami. Do you think that could have hurt me while rushing?