Tossing Out Bids
 

In Scrapcat's thread, she was mentioning that several girls who rushed with her oldest daughter "tossed out" their bids because they only wanted one house. I have heard several times in the last month that that's getting common. Have any of y'all heard anything about that? Especially by girls aiming for one group?

:confused: No different than not showing up at bid day, or declining a bid at your door/at the student center/wherever you find out who bid you. The result is the same. Stupid people are stupid.

This is getting common around here. I believe it is the result of the computer system where girls are encouraged to maximize their options. Girls who would have "suicided" one house really only want that one house after prefs, but list all of their choices in the hopes that if they aren't at the top of the list they will get a bid by quota addition. Then, when they don't get what they want when the bids are passed out, they refuse their bid.

Some of it is because of preconceived notions, tent talk, chapters where they had a friend or a legacy and assumed they had an in, some they just had to have a bid.

(As an aside, it is just as upsetting to see legacy's mom standing next to her on bid day and saying, "just take it. take it. They are a great group of girls, too." and PNM sobbing and tossing it away, as legacy mom pitching a fit because PNM didn't get a bid to her legacy.)

What factors cause quota to be set lower, HQWest? I'm not familiar with this aspect.

My campus delivers bids by decorating your door and leaving your bid day shirt and envelope while PNMs are sequestered in the student center. I came back to find my Chi O bid, and the girl across the hall from me had one too! I said something along the lines of "We're going to be sisters!" And she was just like "No...I'm not doing it." She took down the decoration and went to hide in her room. I thought it was really rude and closed-minded, and it tempered my bid day excitement a little bit.

It is fairly common for several sororities on my campus to bid quota but lose quite a few during the NM period, which is really unfortunate IMO- and most of it is from women refusing to even give their GLO a try, there are very few who try it genuinely aren't happy.

PNMs reading this, always always give your new org a try! They want you and are excited to have you. You may be surprised at how much you love your new chapter in non-recruitment mode.

I like you, HannahXO.

Oh, I meant the same thing. No matter how you decline it, you turned down a bid!

Thanks AzTheta! :D

I'm new to posting here, so I don't want what I'm about to ask to come off as combativie. I truly am curious, and that's it.

On one hand, I see young ladies being referred to as "stupid" for declining a bid to a house they really don't feel they are a good fit for. On the other hand, I have seen threads where PNMs are encouraged to "maximize your options" and "keep an open mind". What is the best route for a PNM, then? Should she keep an open mind all the way through pref and if, after attending pref, she really can't see herself in a certain chapter, not list them on her bid card? What if that means suiciding? Isn't that also frowned upon here? But isn't the PNM who just wants letters also frowned upon? It just seems as though there is conflicting advice. On one hand, don't just want to be in any house for the sake of wanting letters. On the other hand, don't suicide because that's not keeping an open mind. But if you don't suicide and get a bid to a house you don't want, then you're being stupid if you decline it. I'm sure this is confusing to PNMs.

Again, not combative at all; just honestly looking for your take. I rushed in 1996 on campus that wasn't competitive at all so a lot of this is new to me. I am a member of an NPC and have been following this site for quite some time but only recently began posting. I'm also now pursuing membership in Beta Sigma Phi.

Why is this such a big source of supposed "misunderstanding" on the part of anyone? A PNM can potentially get a bid from ANY chapter she lists on her preference card. If you'd rather not be in a sorority that potentially have to claim yourself as a NM of Alpha Beta, then don't list them on the pref card. And if you don't get your fave or your second fave, well that's too bad. Buck up and deal. You takes your chances. That's how it works. Simple.

I understand your theory HQWest but I don't think that's really rooted in fact. Even though the majority of PNMs do get a bid from the group they listed as their first preference, there have always been and will always be PNMs that will not get a bid from their first choice. A smaller number will not be placed with their second choice. And all groups, even the most "popular" on any given campus, have NMs who don't initiate for a variety of reasons- financial, time, lack of support from their family or boyfriend, a decision to transfer schools, get involved in other activities or they decide it's just not for them for whatever reason.

Disagree. If you're such a twit that you wouldn't even give the group a chance, you don't deserve to be a sorority member. If my legacy behaved that way, I'd be mortified. While everyone can understand the twinge of disappointment that your daughter did not join your sorority, if you didn't prepare yourself and her for that possibility (heck maybe probability considering the odds) before she signed up for recruitment you did not do yourself or your daughter due diligence.

I believe in maximizing options to a point but I loathe forcing women to go to prefs they don't want to attend and then penalizing them if they don't list them. By the time a PNM gets to prefs, she should have a feel for a group or not (I think I started a thread on forced prefs a few years back).

Forced prefs can also hurt sororities; they can have full pref parties because of that and then end up with few to no new members. I can't imagine the shock of a recruitment chair who had full pref parties and then receives an empty new member list.

Each girl knows how far she can "stretch". If she gets her second or third choice and thinks maybe it's do-able even though her heart is broken, she could try it. If she gets a bid that's a no-way, like in the thread we had on bids that people sometimes get from a sorority they haven't seen in 3 rounds, the no one should be dumping on her for turning it down.

PNMs: try to be open but you know where your limits are.

Yes, it is very important to keep an open mind during recruitment and maximize your options. ALL NPC orgs (since we're talking about NPC recruitment) are great groups. And when it comes down to pref night, PNMs have an important decision to make. Is there a chapter that a PNM truly could NEVER see herself being a part of for some reason? What is that reason? Is there a chance her opinion could change after getting to know these women as sisters, without the pressures of recruitment? SIPing (suiciding) is generally seen as a bad idea, and that is because PNMs often aren't aware of how they might actually fit into a chapter. They have never been in a sorority, and don't know what it will be like to be part of that sisterhood. A PNM who SIPs may be precluding herself from a lifetime of membership in a great organization just because she had a few awkward conversations during recruitment. So, continuing to have an open mind through the NM period is key. If a woman has honestly given her chapter a try and doesn't feel comfortable being initiated, that's fine.

Hopefully that answered your question! You're right, it is tricky.

See, this is why I think that it is okay for PNM's to suicide a chapter. If they KNOW they are going to turn down a bid, what is the point in maximizing their options? The next day when they get their bid, they just toss it aside. Meanwhile, another girl didn't receive a bid at all when she gladly would have accepted the bid that the first pnm didn't accept.
One of my good friends didn't receive a bid at all last year during recruitment. She had a favorite chapter who cut her. A girl in my recruitment group got a bid to that said chapter, and didn't accept the bid because she only wanted the other house she preffed. I just wanted to shake her and say, WHY DIDN'T YOU SUICIDE THEN? If you would rather not be in a sorority, that bid could have gone to someone who wanted it!

I think the argument about "maximizing your options" is that these girls, having the grades, the extra-curriculars, etc., have likely been very successful in their lives up to now, and they are getting their first taste of rejection. If we push push push them to stay with it, they are likely to be happy where they end up IF they are willing to accept that there are only so many places in a new member class, and all of the sororities, even the smallest, have virtues. Yes, they should SIP if there is no way they would accept the bid for whatever reason. But recruitment isn't life and once that craziness is over, most people won't know or care which chapter you're in and where they're ranked on campus. The trick is talking an 18 year old into that when she's hearing girls talk about how HORRIBLE that house is and how they'd sooner DIE than wear those letters. I firmly believe if you could nip that, there are a lot of chapters on a lot of campuses that would have vastly different outcomes. Unfortunately, on a lot of campuses you can't fast-forward to the week after recruitment to show the girls that life goes happily on, even for the mid- to lower tier chapters. There's no opportunity to rectify a childish mistake.

What would be the alternative? A pref party is just like every other recruitment event- it's a chance to be introduced to the sorority members and to introduce yourself. You are just getting a chance to get to know them a little better. Yes it's more formal and serious. Attending the party is not making a commitment to list that group on your pref card or initiate.

The "penalty" if that's what you want to call it (I'd call it potential consequence) is that if a PNM lists a group on he pref card, she may potentially get a bid from that group, and if she turns it down, she can not participate in recruitment for one year. A PNM is not going to get a bid from a group she has not seen in 3 rounds unless she lists that group. That would be a very unusual circumstance.

"stupid" might be a harsh way of describing someone who turns down a bid. Even if a PNM is going through recruitment at a school with 15 or more chapters she has only spent a few hours max at recruitment parties. To turn down a bid is just shortsighted and that's why I used the word twit. Give it a chance. If you listed them on your pref card and you can't pursue membership elsewhere for a full year, what do you have to lose? Nothing but the chance to have letters and sisters for life. Isn't that why you signed up in the first place?

A-freakin-men. Unfortunately, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

This. 100%.

While there still lots of naive PNMs out there, there are those who read these boards, have friends active in Greek Life, have moms who volunteer, etc. They know how the system works, and they know what game to play. I actually think this will continue to get worse as it becomes more and more common knowledge how quota additions work.

I wish it were but several of us have seen that happen--check the thread about "Getting a Bid Someplace that You Didn't Pref"--many times. It's got to be a bad surprise to go to prefs at sororities A and B and end up with a bid from C, whose parties you haven't attended since the first day. Apparently, this happens for several reasons but rather than recount them all, I'm just referring you to the thread.

Many times? Really? That's such an unusual circumstance that the only way I could possibly see that happening is a chapter offering a 'snap bid" to someone they have not seen since the OH round. I'm sure some chapters do that but a far more likely scenario would be that a PNM who dropped out without having signed a pref card, and is therefore eligible for COR, gets an invitation to attend a chapter activity that is also an informal recruitment event.

One of my closest sisters attended XY and DEF on Pref night, then decided after attending the parties she did not want a bid from DEF, so she listed XY and Gamma Phi. We were her second choice, and she was bummed for about five minutes, and then spent the last 30 years or so happily ever after. Had she ISP'd, she would have had nothing and with all chapters making quota and over total, would have had to wait a year to try again, and who knows if she would have gotten a bid a year later? That's the far more common scenario of getting a bid from a chapter you did not pref.

I didn't realize that quota was ever based on a share of whoever signed up rather than who preffed.

I don't follow too many campuses, but since I've been paying attention, I haven't seen quota size decline that much over the years relative to the pool in recruitment generally. I mention that to note, that yes, if quota on a certain campus used to be 80 and now it's 60 and the size of the PNM pool is the same, then, I'd have to think that meant more girls used to get their top choice. But if quota has been in about the same range for decades or has been increasing, as it seems to be at the campuses I follow, then it's hard to see how the system is decreasing the number of girls who get bids to their top choices.

I tend to think the release figure and quota range issues just shift when PNMs might receive disappointing news. Now they get dropped by top chapters earlier. But now rather than getting cross cut and getting snapped or COB, they get added to a regular bid list of a house they preffed, but they may get added to a group that wasn't their top choice.

I think the sort of bummer for the chapters is that while their recruitment numbers are better, member retention still isn't perfect. But, and I've got no data to support this really, my instincts tell me that retention is no worse than it used to be at the chapters that snapped and COBed. I could be wrong about this, and it could be that the experience of getting dropped completely made a girl more grateful for a snap or COB bid to XYZ than she is being a made a XYZ QA without the conscious awareness that she didn't make the cut at her other choices, even though the panhellenic system of bid matching tried hard to put her there.

The one thing that I'd stress to PNMs is that there's really no way to game the system to get your top choice. Only maximize your options if you sincerely would be happy in your last choice on the bid card. From a Greek Life official perspective any bid is the same positive outcome, but from a PNM perspective, it is not.

ETA: Carnation, isn't the only penalty for SIPing not being eligible for QA? If you don't list a chapter on your bid card, you don't face penalties for not accepting a bid, correct?

In the real world, what are the chances that a girl's first choice is the chapter that she'd get QAed to when she wouldn't have matched there by regular bid matching? Isn't it tiny unless her taste run counter to the PNM pool generally?

EATA: I guess I should clarify that I'm thinking of cases in which a girl is preffing at least one group that she regards as being significantly less desirable than the rest. If she's preffing the three groups regarded as the most desirable on campus, then I'd guess her chances of being QA are equal at each. But when there's a mix of chapter popularity on her bid card, isn't she most likely to end up, if she is a QA, at one of the less popular chapters?

But what about the other chapters that she preffed? She'd have to not match to them through regular matching too, right? That seems odd.

When you say 25% drop before bid day and half don't see it through to graduation, do you mean at certain chapters or campus wide? If it's campus wide, that seems like something way beyond what any new quota system could fix.

Shoot, I just saw some stats on NPC groups in a magazine but I can't remember whose it was...I was surprised that across the board the percentage of NMs that don't initiate and the percentage of initiates who resign is really pretty low across the board- I think both numbers were in the 3-5% range for all NPCs reporting? A higher percentage of girls drop off the cheerleading squad at my kids' HS, even after their parents buy the $800 uniforms!

I think now that most groups initiate within the first semester, the vast majority of new members do get initiated.

And I think it's rare that members completely resign. I think what happens is that some chapters have more girls who seek early alum status or have to go inactive for various reasons. And there are some campuses at which a lot of student transfer out after a few years too. I doubt these members would show up as resigning in the stats, but they aren't still active members of the chapter.

I've been told that especially at small to middle-sized campus, what happens is that throughout their years of school some girls just kind of peter out of the sorority. One day people notice that "Sarah" and "Emily" haven't shown up for chapter activities for a couple of months and 2 months later into their senior year, 3 more are AWOL. And so on.

And these chapters just allow this? No one calls them into standards or votes to suspend them? If they do, they'd fall into that 3-5%.
I don't see the point of letting these girls stay on the roster but not pay dues or participate.

I was kind of wondering about that...I was talking with a friend the other day about a mutual friend of ours who seems to be slowly losing interest in her GLO, but I can't see her ever actually disaffiliating. If you just "go inactive," as in stop coming to chapter, or even stop paying dues, are you punished in any way? It probably varies by org, and is slightly off topic, although "dead weight" in a chapter also could be related to not getting a bid to your first choice.

Personally, I fall into the group that wound up being a much better fit for me than I ever could have imagined! The other group I preffed is a great organization, but now that I've had the experiences I have had in Chi O, I couldn't see myself anywhere else! This sense of fit only came after I had been an active, initiated sister for a semester or so- it is nothing like I could have imagined during recruitment!

I suspect if you didn't pay dues, there'd be a time limit before official action would take place. But if you have paid, there might not be a big incentive to run people completely off officially vs. hoping they'll become active again.

I've never been an officer or advisor so I want to make clear I'm just speculating.

Going back to the original topic ...

If you, as a PNM, are invited to pref at two chapters, it's because each of those two chapters sees you as a good fit for the chapter and would love to have you as a sister.

However, you may love chapter A and despise chapter B. It's a tough choice - do you suicide chapter A and give up the chance that you might be given a bid to chapter A as a quota addition? Or do you list both groups, and take the risk that you'll get a bid to chapter B?

In the latter case, what do you do if you do get a bid from chapter B? Do you rip up the bid card and run back to your dorm crying, or do you give the chapter a chance? I advise the latter in this case - give 'em a few weeks and then decide whether you want to initiate. During recruitment, you may only meet a small fraction of the sisters, and you have spent maybe a few hours with the chapter. The new member period gives you a chance to meet the rest of the chapter, including your pledge sisters, and make a more informed decision about whether to initiate. Hey, you're bound for a year anyway.

But recruitment is a very emotional time, and I can easily picture a young 17-year-old showing up for bid day absolutely SURE that she will get a bid from her first choice, and when she gets a bid from "only" her second or third choice (or no bid at all), it's her first experience with rejection, and off she goes crying.

As I understand it from GC, quota additions happen one of two ways - they are set either to favor the PNM or the smaller chapter - and I bet you nobody is going to tell you which method they use on any given campus.

I think counseling a PNM to list all possible chapters in hopes of being a quota addition to the one chapter she wants is very bad advice. Yes, I think she should accept that second or third choice chapter, but if she's not going to, listing them for some alternative magical outcome is just going to cause a lot of heartache, for herself, the chapter and the girl who WANTED that spot and didn't get it.

I don't know how it's handled but I would guess that the chapters keep them on the online roster at least to make their numbers look good because on some campuses, all the groups publish their rosters. If they're suddenly missing 10-12 girls whom they know to still be on campus, they might not want their numbers to not be competitive with those of other groups (who are probably doing the same thing). I've known fraternities to do that and also "accidentally" list the names of recent alums (but not note that they're alums now) online.

in zta there is no "inactive" status-you are either an active collegian, an alumna or have resigned your membership. to qualify for alum. status if still enrolled in college, you have to have been a member for 8 semesters. if you stop coming to chapter and/or stop paying your dues or just resign, you will lose your membership.

RE: not paying dues/attending chapter/etc. Seems to me that many chapters have automatic billing/payment systems nowadays and members would be quickly terminated for financial reasons, if nothing else! I don't think that's any kind of "secret" information. The automated billing system has eliminated the stress and expense of pursuing members who have financial obligations to the fraternity. You pay your bill - you remain in good standing. You don't - oh well, too bad, so sad.

Sorry to offend the n00b, but I was being funny and flip. The fact of the matter is, if you wrote that group down on your bid card and that's who you got a bid from, you are bound to them for a year...so yes, not taking it at that point is stupid. You can't take a bid anywhere else, so you might as well give it a whirl. Go to bid day. Keep telling yourself "these girls like me. These girls chose me."

This is why I think it's so injurious to struggling chapters when they aren't allowed to cut ANYONE, no matter how bad a fit the woman may be, no matter how rude they may be, no matter how unsuitable in general they may be. Girls who the group really DOES want who may have had a question about the group see women who obviously are only there for reasons of numbers and they can't confidently say to themselves "I am here because they wanted me." The girls who could have been a positive addition quit, and the chapter continues on its downward spiral.

The concept of sisters who just drift away has pretty much been eradicated. It used to be a lot looser than it is now.

This requires the chapter to WANT to do that. You're generally talking about friends who you've known for four years and as a senior you're maybe feeling a little burnt out too, and yada yada yada.

It _can_ be done, it just isn't always done.

Regarding your statement about Theta, that's not quite accurate. I can comment on Kappa Alpha Theta. Financial inactivity is difficult to obtain and the member who is applying must complete a rigorous, thorough application process which undergoes review at several levels. It is typically granted for a semester if the member qualifies; it may be extended up to a year under extraordinary circumstances.

As for attending events, the inactive member may attend as a guest only upon unanimous vote of the chapter. There is no option for paying a fee to attend events. An inactive member is just that - inactive. Think of the financial and membership implications if members decided to go inactive and just "pay as you go" for various social events. Oh yeah, sure...

Hey Drole, empty out your PM box, will you? :p

Thank you for the clarification about Theta. Some of the information that I have about a less rigorous interpretation of the policy or a "well so-and-so does it"....

Done ;)

lane swerve/

I like this. :)

I imagine that would be terrible. I loosely compare it to nonfinancial Deltas who just show up to events. Delta is for life for those who don't "officially depledge" but we want Sorors to be financial and active before coming to most collegiate and alumnae events (whether the events are free or cost). Rededication is also about that link between being a Soror and being a Member.

/lane swerve

You're welcome; having an automated billing system is taking a lot of "wiggle room" out of policy interpretation. As I am reminded, the members know the rules and if they choose to break them or not enforce them, there are natural consequences.

And - DrPhil you come swerve anytime, okay? You picked up what I was setting down :D