Thanks for all the responses to my post... I am getting more confused by the second here. I do understand what Az-AlphaXi and lyrelyre posted... maybe they're correct. The thing is just getting confusing to me. I guess the part that confuses me the most is when you move past the first bid lists, what happens. Say a chapter has 25 spaces left after exhausting their first bid list. Any girl that ranked them #1 and is on their list from 101-125 would be an automatic match, I assume. Any girl that ranked them #2 and for whose first choice house is already full would be an automatic match, I assume.

So the question is... Let's assume that the PNM in question, who ranked sorority B #2, was #126 on their bid list. Sorority B has filled 24 of their 25 remaining places with girls who ranked them #1, but were not on their first bid list. There's one spot in Sorority B left.

So who would match to Sorority B first? The PNM in question, who was #126 on their list and ranked them second, or another PNM, who was #127 on their list and ranked them first?

I agree, though, that there's no use thinking strategically when ranking chapters. Rank them how you really feel about them. There's also not much point second-guessing your rankings... As the various explanations demonstrate, you'll never really know what happened during your bid matching, and it's too complicated to really "out-think" the matching process. You should follow your heart.

But it's fun for others of us to obsess about this crap. LOL

Let me see if I can answer this..

If the sorority that the #126 PNM ranked first has filled quota then she will match to sorority B and #127 will not. The method will not move #127 onto the first bid list (ie where matches are made) until #126 moves off which she can only do in 2 ways. The first way is to match to her first choice, in which case #127 moves on to the list of B and matches. The second is to match with B when A has filled quota and by matching #126 B fills quota and #127 does not match with B. At this point the method attempts to match #127 with her second choice.

The key here is that the number of names on the first bid list plus the number of names on the matched list can never ever be more than quota. So, when a chapter has filled all quota spaces but 1, then their first bid list numbers 1 name and only 1 name until that there is a match. Then their first bid list numbers 0. You also need to remember, once a PNM moves onto a sorority's first bid list she does not move off it until she matches somewhere.

The way I have seen QA's handled on one campus is that all of the houses who fill quota get QA's and they appear to be distributed on a fairly equal basis. No one on this campus ends up cross cut. Some houses may get one or two more QA's but it is determined based on how many of those bottom, bottom girls are not matched. They look at the numbers and start adding names to chapter matched bid lists. And you are right, the QA's almost always get their first choice whereas the girls caught in the middle of the B lists often get their second choice. Weird.

bump!

I read this entire thread and had two thoughts:

1. I have never met anyone who got their 2nd or 3rd choice ... or at least, I've never met anyone who has admitted to it.

2. I have never met anyone who admitted to being a quota addition.

They wouldn't know if they were a QA, but they might know if they were a snap bid.

I've known a bunch of fairly recent new members (from 2000 on) who've attended competitive universities who admitted that they got their 2nd or 3rd choices. I hope they never told their sororities, though. All ended up being great members!

It does happen. Thankfully, these members often have a good attitude, and their sisters never know the difference.

I don't know how one could know if she is a quota addition.

I understand that quota is based on how many girls are LEFT on the last day

and if Panhel tells the houses how many PNMs to cut each round, then wonderful women get left out

Not unless they only focus on the top chapters. RFM is there to force the sororities AND the PNMs to "get real." Too many sororities were asking back women they had no intention of bidding just to make themselves look super popular, and too many PNMs were focusing only on 2 or three top chapters. RFM prevents that. If the women don't have open minds and don't want to look at the chapters that have asked them back, that's their loss.