What do your bids look like?
 

Here's an interesting thing: when my older daughter went through formal rush at her school, the final bids the girls received varied widely. Her sorority gave out beautiful stationery with the envelope tied in a ribbon. Other girls in her group got nothing but a photocopied sheet of paper. One girl got a hand written bid on construction paper. Just wondering if times have changed. The copypaper seems a bid odd....

ZTA has an engraved, formal stock bid card that is ordered from our headquarters. i thought that every chapter used it, but when i have seen photos of Auburn bid day, i have seen girls holding up tri-folded bids that look like panhellenic might have printed them. maybe they get their real bid card at their bid day celebration or at their pledging ceremony?

In the old days, our panhell printed standard cards with the NPC crest on top with a blank for the organization to be hand printed. It would then be placed in an envelope labeled with the PNMs name. My card doesn't have my name on it but has Alpha Omicron Pi labeled on a blank. AOII also has standard bid cards available, but I have worked with chapters that get cardstock and hand write bid cards.

I'm pretty sure my chapter uses a standardized bid card. It's very formal, printed on some nice white stock with calligraphy writing and our crest at the bottom. I know a couple of the sororities on my campus hand-craft their bids. Alpha Xi Delta put little puzzle pieces painted in their colors to open and close the bid. It was ADORABLE. Phi Sigma Sigma did their on scrapbook paper, and it was really cute.

SAI bid cards are ordered directly from NH if a chapter chooses to use them. There is no mandate (as far as I know) that a chapter has to use them.

The one from NH (which is also the one I got) looks like:

Our coat-of-arms embossed in gold and centered at the top.
Then reads:

I scanned mine in and emailed it to my sister right after I got it (I was so proud!). It's now formally framed and hangs on my wall. I'll see if I can dig up a picture.

ETA: Here it is--all framed and pretty. It's not great quality and the glass causes an extra glare.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ite/SAIBid.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/2h3q97q.jpg
This is my bid card I received at Bid Day! Most of the other bids I saw from other chapters looked pretty similar to this. However, I have seen DG bids that are quite different.

it seems what it says on the inside varies a bit between chapters.

I love seeing all the bids. They are so pretty!

At UF the bid cards cannot have crests/symbols/anything that you may see through the envelope and know its one certain chapter. All the bid cards have to be signed in black in as well. (This is what I was told two years ago, it may have changed!)

(In the tone of Charlie Brown's,"I got a rock,"), at Auburn back in the day...all the rushees got computer punchcards.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...o/DSC01744.jpg
This is my bid to DO. <3 I don't know about other DO chapters, but this is the bid I received this spring. It's really pretty and even though we're not NPC, I still adore my bid card.
I don't know if other professional societies do this, because technically Delta Omicron is a professional international music fraternity that's coed.

My bid card way back in 1996 at Ole Miss was a computer print out on an index size piece of paper. It said: Congratulations <insert name> Alpha Omicron Pi. I still have it!

Today at Ole Miss, all of the sororities use the pretty bid cards with their seal/crest/flower on them. They are very pretty and much more special I think than a print out from a computer!

You can see the AOII Ole Miss bid day card at the bottom of their website:
http://www.olemiss.edu/orgs/alphaomi...cruitment.html
Small pic but you get the idea.

Why not use lined envelopes?

FWIW (yeah, I know this is a sorority recruitment forum), our standard bid card says "Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity invites _________ to pledge himself to probationary membership in the _____________ chapter." The coat of arms appears behind the words in gray scale, and there is an RSVP info line.

Mine disappeared in a move eons ago. :(

Ole Miss Glitter-

I pledged Theta at Ole Miss in 1979 and I got the same computer printed card... and I still have mine in my scrapbook, too :D

yeah that makes sense. our envelopes were SO thick though that you couldn't see anything! they were lined with gold foil too. very pretty and special. i'll keep it forever <3

they also made us sit on our envelopes until all 800 of us had theirs! i don't think i've ever been so nervous/excited in my life! could NOT sit still!

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2..._8287204_n.jpg

My bid card is not in the same state as I am right now, otherwise I'd totes have a picture of the inside as well :)

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...Rush-KDbid.jpg

The inside was hand-written.

You all made me look. If I ever had a physical bid card, it disappeared. We got picked up at our dorms and whisked away to our celebration party. I don't remember ever giving out bid cards at all - our rush chairs might.

OleMissGlitter, is that a pref picture with the girls in white dresses with cardinal sashes? It's gorgeous!

It sure is! Those were their dresses for the past couple of years. They are switching to new ones this year. They were really pretty though with pockets, and are bridesmaids dresses!

Here's my bid card! It is 15 years old this August! Oh and I am from New Orleans but since my parents have always had a summer home on the MS Gulf Coast, that was my residency for in-state status! I did confuse a few sororities with that!
http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...0954_00123.jpg
Not very pretty like the new ones today but still one of the best things I ever read!!!

Here is my bid card. It's the same size as an index card.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...47/bidcard.jpg

Bid cards have been different at each school I have worked at or attended...

1. Undergrad at Valpo - As a relic from the days of the local, the bids were identical for each sorority. An piece of printed on card stock with the bid actually being extended from the Panhellenic on behalf of the chapter. It was great for the reveal because there were no external differences. KDMafia knows what they look like today.

2. Regional State School in OH - No idea! I cannot remember what anyone ever told me.

3. Small Private School in OH - Designed by the chapters, but we had to watch what they added or else it would be totally obvious about the chapter. We put them in bigger envelopes to help. I think we had to ask for a fake flower to be removed from an envelope one year. Someone were beautiful and others were cute and crafty.

4. Large Public in the SE - Each chapter has their own. Most are the embossed, formal ones with crests, etc. Funny thing at the KD house...no one knew where the bid cards were on Pref Night. Oops! Because their was a spring class, we (the alums) thought the chapter had them. The chapter just printed them out on card stock last spring and did not know to order the fancy ones. It was a pretty comical hour as we figured this out. Everyone had bids the next day, and the nice ones are now ordered!

Mine looked formal and beautiful but I couldn't help but be disappointed when someone with absolute chicken scratch for handwriting had written in the chapter name. It ruined the flow of it. I couldn't even guess what the chapter said. My roommate had thrown it out in a fit of cleaning.

My new DZ got a standard notecard very similar to Waterchilds bid. All bids were identical and in same size envelopes. My daughter did say she could sorta tell the crest through the envelope and was totally thrilled!

I do, however, love my Phi Mu daughters bid. It is beautiful with the ribbon and all.

finally found my bid card :)

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/3166/bidcard.jpg

Never did get a paper like that, guess it is all part of that "if, not when" idea.

What does this mean?

Oh, I never got a bid card is what I am trying to get at.

"If and not when" refers to how a pledge should not get overzealous about being in the fraternity. Giving a bid card can cause such feelings.

A bid doesn't guarantee initiation, though.

Hence why that attitude is discouraged.

This really makes no sense at all.

That is what jazing is saying.

Even with a bid it is still "if and not when (as though it is a definite)." That is why jazing says the attitude of "I have a bid card and therefore will definitely be initiated" is discouraged.

It makes sense because you are both saying the same thing.

Yea, I see that jazing and I agree about the "bid =/= initiation" thing, but the reasoning behind it doesn't make sense to me.

That is like saying "My company doesn't do job interviews because we don't want candidates thinking that an interview guarantees employment."

We really don't know why jazing didn't receive a bid card.

But, if an analogy is necessary, it is more like "my company doesn't do post-interview calls or emails to say 'congrats on making it to the interview stage, expect notification of your status...' because we don't want candidates thinking our follow-up guarantees employment."

Actually it's like saying "I didn't take a bath before this date because I don't want him thinking he's going to get some just because I have clean lady parts."

LOL

Or like saying "I didn't brush my teeth because he may assume I want to kiss him."

This is a fun "it's like saying" game.

LOL

this is my new siggy - thanks 33!