Well I was a Rho Chi my Junior year, and we did bid distribution the same way all four years I was in school, and still do it this way today.

Pref is held usually a Monday or Tuesday night-it ends at 10 and girls have until 12 to sign their pref cards. Then the next day, the girls come to the Union between usually 11:30 and 2 where all
the Rho Chis are set up around the room at tables. Panhel
allows one girl from each group to go in at one time, and there
the girls decide if they want to sign their bid or not. Even if you
didn't sign, though, most of the girls were convinced to at least go to bid day. If you didn't recieve a bid, you were notified early, early that morning. Luckily, I did not have this problem with any of my girls. Then, at 5 pm, everyone gathers at memorial chapel-the girls, the rho chis, panhel, and the pres, rush chair, and new member mom from each chapter. There is a breif ceremony where the PX's and panhel reveal themselves, and then the girls are dismissed by chapter, and everyone RUNS down the huge
hill under the chapel, across Rte 1 (which is a VERY busy road)-and down to the houses where they are met by the chanting,
screaming sisterhood. It is always really fun :)

At my school, after pref day you and another girl are sent to a dorm room and have an hour or so to fill out your pref card. Then, the rho chi's pick them up and take them over to Panhellenic Central (some designated spot on campus). If you don't get a bid, they will call you in the morning but otherwise, they tell you they will come to your room between 11-1. They slide your card under your door and if you slide it back, then they know you haven't accepted (they give you some time to decide). Then, the rho chi will yell that everyone can come out of their rooms and you run up to your groups meeting place which is usually the lounge of another floor in your dorm. They always put two or three floors in a rho chi group. Anyways, at that point, they give you your bid day shirt and you go down to the lawn where all of the seniors of the sororities are waiting. Then Panhellenic says a few things, the rho chis reveal themselves and you run to your house! Its pretty awesome and yes, you can figure out who didn't recieve a bid but they have a chance to leave before the other girls recieve theirs. It makes for a great day.

Re: Re: At Virginia Tech...
 

At WIU they put you all in the Murry Cafe (basicly a cafeteria), then hand everyone sealed bid cards...then they say 1, 2, 3 open them and then after the noise has calmed down they call in alphabetaical order the soroites...(ASA's your sisters are here for you, AST's your sisters are here for you, DZ's your sisters are here for you, etc..) and two sisters take you to meet up with all your other sisters in the Grand Ballroom where they do Rho Chi reveal.

i always get confused by this. what if the pnm does not live on campus? then what do you do?

At Florida Tech, the two sororities (will be 3 in 2 years when Phi Sigma Sigma participates in Formal Recruitment) set up camp at opposite sides of the plaza outside the Student Union from about 12-4 on Bid Day. The new girls go inside and receive an envelope and open up their bid. I don't think we even tell the RCs if we're going to accept, but maybe we do (I was so excited I was jumping around and screaming that I think it was pretty obvious that I was accepting). Then the girls go outside to the tables and tell the sorority if they're accepting.

The girls are usually so bad! They'll walk towards one and then zig zag over to the other one and then finally arrive at their table. It kills us! :mad: :)

The only problem I really see with this is that there was one time a girl didn't get a bid (if you get to Pref, you're going to get a bid on this campus) and no one called her. Instead she just showed up and the RCs were like umm... there's no bid for you.

They put the girls who don't live on campus in temporary on-campus housing.

When I was in college, the PNMs met in the student union building to open bid cards all together. Those with no bid were visited earlier in the morning by their Rho Chis, and did not come. Then everyone who received bids all ran out of the front doors onto a big open quad area where each sorority had a corner. The NM ran to her sorority. There was a lot of chanting, balloons, stuffed animals, etc..... It wasn't a far run, so if someone wasn't real thrilled with her bid, it wasn't very noticeable. In all of the confusion a person also was not able to tell who got more girls, pretty girls, and such. NM got Bid Day shirts as soon as they reached their new sisters, so they blended in immediately.

It was very noisy, exciting, and wonderful to watch. The Rho Chis then came out one at a time, pulled off their Rush shirts to reveal the Bid Day shirt underneath, and ran to their sisters. After about 15 minutes of celebrating the groups split up to go to their Bid Day celebrations at private homes or swim clubs.

There were always lots of fraternity members, alums, teachers, parents, and unaffiliated college students there to watch.

At my school, if you didn't get a bid they will call you around 9am or so to tell you. If you did, you just report to Union and you line up single file. One of the Rho Gamma's is in the front at the door to the room you're going into, handing out these big brown envelopes which are closed but have your name on it, and you get one as you go in. All of the girls outline this large room so we make one big circle. The woman in charge of recruitment, then goes around and shows off her amazingly awesome memory, by introducing us all by our full names... she memorizes all of this in about a week (she also supposedly memorizes what sorority we were all placed into as well too). We had about 90 girls or so go through recruitment this past year. (my school is small compared to most). After this, the Rho Gamma's all get up and show who they really belong to us... after confusing us a couple of time by swapping their letters around between each other. When they're done teasing us they all group off based on sorority and finally while your anticipation is at it's highest, they let us open our brown envelopes. That's of course really fun since the bid card is rather small compared to the large envelope so you've got to dig in deep when you open it and everyone just wants to get to it ASAP. Then of course there are a lot of screams, and everyone goes to their respective sorority.

This is how it's done at Syracuse...

Pref night is on Saturday, and you get your bids Sunday morning. The Rho Gammas will call you by 9am if you don't get a bid. We meet at 9:30 with our Rush Groups, and they don't let you open your bid card until 10am, which was awful. At 10, they gave out our cards, and we had to sit on them until everyone had a card. Then we all opened them up at once...and the room practically explodes. Then, they take us all, still in our rush groups to the auditorium where all the sororities are waiting, we all recite the Panehellenic Creed, and the Rho Gammas reveal themselves onstage. Then we all run to our sorority houses, where they have food and activities.

all the girls go into a big room, open them at the same time, and rush to the corner their new sorority is at, then they all go to the sorority suites..

We have everyone gather at the steps on Bid Day, which is a Monday afternoon. If a girl has been dropped from recruitment or offered a snap bid she has been called the night before or early in the morning. Snap bids can show up, but they don't run.

They all sit on the steps and are handed closed envelopes containing their bids. The recruitment team has a reveal, in threes. Then the Greek advisor will usually stall one or two more minutes to build anticipation and also to let the gamma rho's get their hugs in and get ready with the chapters for their new girls. Then at her signal they open their envelopes and run to their new chapter.

Most of the time even if a girl doesn't get her first choice she isn't devastated by her second. Sometimes she is, though...every year there's always that girl that doesn't run.

Most girls do get bids, especially with snap bidding. The chapters take their girls to their halls and then to their bid day parties. It's fun, but I can't imagine not knowing...because I had "suicided" I wasn't nervous. I think I really would have been if I didn't know what was in that envelope.

Can you explain?

Yeah, it seems a little heartless not to try to treat them as much like the others as you can. If they've accepted the bids before the ceremony, why not pretend they were matched the regular way?

They just join the group instead of sitting on the steps. They don't have envelopes to open, obviously, since they already know where they're going.

Wow, that sucks for them.