Getting a Bid from Someone You Didn't Pref
 

We talked about this briefly here quite awhile back but never did much with it...

More and more, I hear from girls who went to, say, AB and CD for prefs. Nobody called them to see if they would accept a bid from someone they didn't pref nor did they get a call from Panhellenic telling them that they didn't match. Then they opened their envelopes not to find a bid from AB or CD but one from from Cruddy Phi Cruddy, whom they'd cut on the first day. A week ago.

I've already heard it three times this year. How can a Panhellenic get away with that? Can you imagine the shock? I asked one girl who told me this had happened to 2 of her suitemates what the girls did and she replied that they didn't even go down to accept or decline the bids, they just drove home.:(

Have any of you heard of this? Do you think that it's something that some Panhellenics do to attempt to help smaller groups?

Wow.

That's crazy.

If they didn't get a bid from the two groups they preffed, and declined the bid from the random group that they had already cut/got cut from, would that forbid them from trying COR for the whole year until FR started up again?

That's a bummer :(

Is that even "legal" for the Panhellenic to do that if they technically did not match? Why couldn't they just try to see if she would accept a snap bid from another group?

I have a ton of questions!!

I"m full of questions too and it has happened to girls we know of on least 3 campuses. What are they thinking--that the girls would be so thrilled just to get a bid, any bid, that they would happily run to the new group, no questions asked?

Or, as a Sig Ep here asked, "At the schools where this happened, was the Panhellenic president a member of the group they got the bids from?" :rolleyes: LOL.

One would think that the girls would get a call saying that they didn't match with either house, thus making them eligible for COR. Sure, they might think about a snap bid, but if you don't get that "you didn't match" phonecall, they're probably stoked and pumped for a bid from AB or CD. Plus, that would just be totally unfair if the forced matching actually bound these girls for a calendar year.

Carnation,
If I knew the 3 campuses, I would be on the phone tomorrow with their Panhellenic Advisor to specifically ask that question. But that's just me! I have never, ever heard of that happening. These groups must have had their snap bids ready going into pref!

Am I the only one who's dying to see a "Cruddy Phi Cruddy" t-shirt now? ;)

No you are NOT the only one---I just couldn't bring myself to retype it!!!

I have never heard of this happening, but I can't understand how anyone could get away with doing that! It would be one thing if the girls had put a sorority they didn't pref down on their pref cards, but to just wind up with a bid from some random chapter they cut really early in rush just seems wrong. I don't blame 'em...I probably would've simply driven home, too.

I believe the university of Texas at Austin is doing something like that this year. It is called the Guranteed Bid System. Now I am certianly not on the up and up regarding it, and when it was explained to me, I was still very confused. It was something about placing all the girls, even without snap bids and it could very well possibly be a bid from a group the PNM did not attend a Preference party for.
Would anyone who knows for sure care to elaborate and explain it better?

I'd want to know if the girls' Rho Chis were Cruddy Phi Cruddy's who conviently forgot to call the girls before accepting a snap bid on their behalf...

If I...
 

were a PNM and this happened to me, I'd be raising you-know-what. By no means does this seem to be "mutual selection," and any woman going through rush should be able to decline membership to any group. Am I the only one that thinks this is an incredibly clueless policy on the part of panhellenics? It undermines the recruitment process, particularly if a woman ends up committed unknowingly to an organization she may know little about. Was snap bidding not working?

I think it's great that campuses are aiming to be more inclusive, but women (and the sororities) should still be able to decide whether they want to join a specific chapter.

I'm betting it came from a combination of young and inexperienced Panhellenic directors plus some pushy sorority members. Beginning jobs in student life pay abominably so with inexperience,a lot of sketchy stuff flies by and I have seen some :eek: things happen since my 6 oldest girls started college (the first went in 2000). Things that no one challenged, not even local alum clubs or advisors, so nothing was done.

But that's one of the very worst...

OK, I'm confused.

Is this a situation where the PNM did not write Cruddy Phi Cruddy on her bid card? If so, then I would think that the bid offer from CPC would be non-binding as the PNM did not bind herself on the bid card.

I've only known one instance where a PNM was put in a sorority which she didn't pref, but that was by her choice (she was a bit of a ditz).

yes. carnation means that the girls put ONLY the names of the two chapters where they actually attended the pref. parties. then magically, when they opened up their bid envelope, there was cruddy phi cruddy, whom they had dropped early in the recruitment week!!

i tell you what, this political correctness/everyone is even/we are all the same is really starting to get to me!!

That's appalling! If I became aware of this sort of situation I'd be on the phone with my NPC delegate or Area Advisor ASAP. How utterly devasted those PNMs must have been. Without receiving that dreaded phone call saying they didn't match, they had to have believed they received a bid from one of the places they preffed and assumably loved. They're entitled to that phone call as well as the one offering a snap bid. That's just plain wrong!!!!!

I can speak from experience.

I ranked a Chapter #1 all week long (Theta) and went to all of their rounds except prefs. I only went to prefs with one group, Chapter AB.

But opened my bid to find my #1 choice (Theta). Believe me I was suprised and estatic. How it happened lord only knows.

After prefs my Rho Gamma had me put down all groups that I would accept a bid from. My rho gamma and the graduate assistant of Greek Life both knew who my #1 choice was. So It could be a possibility that because I ranked all chapters I would accept a bid from that someone accepted a snap on my behalf rather than giving me the call that I had been dropped.

The world will never know. But years later, I am happy as a duck and thankful that things worked out the way they did. It taugh me a lot and I wouldnt chance a thing.

I've never heard of that at all. Green Book recommendations call for unmatched PNMs to be called and asked if they will accept a bid from another group. If the answer is yes, then their names should be distributed for snap bids.

My school is one of those where it's possible to get a bid from someone whom you didn't pref. We don't do any cuts before pref, so even if you have ABC with every fiber of your being and know that you wouldn't want to be an ABC, you still have to go to their rush parties. In order to be eligible for a bid, PNM's have to rank all four sororities. If you only got invited and went to XYZ's pref and loved them, they could be your first choice, then LMN, then OPQ, then finally, ABC. However, if you were on ABC's B list and XYZ, LMN, and OPQ all made quota, it is possible to get a bid from them.

I'm pretty sure this happened in 1999 at Ole Miss. I vaguley remember hearing about a few girls who did not even pref a house but they got bids to that house. They were confused and ended up dropping out altogether until Panhellenic fixed the problem. I also think with the new Ranking System Ole Miss uses that it could be possible to get a bid from a house you didn't pref...I think but I could totally be wrong. I know it is possible to attend 1st round of parties and then not attend Skit parties and be invited to Pref parties. That is because of the Regret With Interest system.

I've kind of been through this, but as an initiate on the other side of rush.

When I was President, we had four girls walk into our suite on bid day who we had cut on the first day. We were all shocked and it was really hard to get over it. We discovered that Panhellenic, at the urging of some random alumnae who had been sent by NHQ to help us with rush, had added those girls to our bid lists because they thought we needed the numbers. None of us in the chapter were told - not me as President and not our VPM. In short, we were pissed. On the other hand, the four girls were thrilled to be in our suite because they had all been dropped during the week. They were expecting not to get bids, but had received calls from the Greek Life office that morning telling them that they did, in fact, get bids.

It was a horrible experience, and after these alums found out how upset we were, they left town that same day and never came back to our chapter again.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Wow. How did this work out in the end? Did the sisters come to accept them, and did they become valuable members of the sorority?

That's what I want to know.

This is one of the most hideous things I've ever heard, and I sincerely hope those women are no longer involved with Sigma Kappa on a national level. I also hope that your chapter wasn't stuck with these girls.

As best I remember, three of the four eventually dropped within the year. One woman was married with two kids, two others were just bad, and the fourth one did actually stay. That particular year was her third rush - one at another school and the second one at my school. She was a sweet girl, but just odd. It took a long time, but most of the chapter came to accept her and like her. The year she pledged, her parents came to visit her and they met me at the suite one day. They said how happy they were that she got into a sorority and thanked us for allowing her to be a part of the chapter. So, it turned out OK.

As for the alums, I never saw them again after that. I don't think any of us truly got the full story as to where they came from or who at NHQ sent them.

That's crazy!!! YOur chapter at the very minimum deserved an explanation.

Biting my tounge when I SO want to say it.

Not to get off topic but, by the time of my last fall semester we had had this one girl come through fall recruitment for her 4th year in a row and had been through spring recruitment 3 times without a bid. Why she had decided to keep going through recruitment no one knows. As sad as it is, it almost became a running joke of her coming through and never getting bid similar to Susan Lucci's past repeated nominations without a win at the Emmy's.

xoheatherxo was telling me about a girl at her school who rushed 3 times in a row. She would always drop out of recruitment before prefs because she thought that she wouldn't have enough time to be in a sorority. Then, the next year, she'd show up again, then drop out. Everyone was like "does she really like rushing or something?"

Something about another particular rushee at my school?

We had a similar story to SigK_Bama's, 2 girls we cut every round of rush (somehow they kept turning back up at our parties) and put on our B bid list because we didn't have a choice ended up getting bids to our house. We actually tried to give them a chance in the beginning, then once it was determined by most women that it wasn't going to work out we tried to de-pledge them. Long story short they got initiated and we never heard from or about them again - I can't figure out why they would pay all that money if they were never going to show up again after that :confused:

Now, WHAT would give you THAT idea??;) :rolleyes:

So you all have some serial rushees????

I hear you there! When I was an officer in Omicron Delta Kappa, we extended bids and invited the new folks to their first meeting. Some people we didn't invite showed up and they had invitations! There were people far more qualified who hadn't made it!

Our advisor made us sweep it under the table and take them. A lot of students were very unhappy. We thought that the secretary sent out the extra bids but we never found out why.:(

As to the girls who made Cruddy Phi, my informant said they left--horribly upset--and never rushed again. She knows they were at AB and CD prefs because she was at the same prefs and they were talking there about how irritated they were that CPC kept asking them back, even though they kept cutting them.I don't know if they ever pursued it with Panhellenic or simply faded away, like burned PNMs usually do. :(

That's what seems to happen with burned PNMs, at least the ones I've heard about--PH acts like, "Oh well, it's too late, everyone has their pledge classes and we're so sorry, but....." I wish that NPC would send every local Panhellenic a booklet of possible crazy scenarios and details about how they could solve the problems.

I can see how it could happen when the PNM ranks someone they didn't pref-----and I've seen posts from many here talking about doing it---either required or just because they like someone they didn't pref. But if they didn't have them on their bid card, they shouldn't have to accept.

I had a different problem. I went to bid matching one year when we didn't make quota. A PNM that had declined us with interest in an early round, ranked us. Her pref groups did not give her a bid and we didnt have her on our bid list. Because we had a place open and would have offered her a snap bid, we did extend a bid. She accepted and became a great member.

I'm pretty sure one of the more recent Greek Advisors at my school would pull stuff like that, accepting bids on behalf of the PNM. She was always trying to make sure recruitment numbers looked good but I think she went about it all wrong.

Recruitment Supervisor = More Power than GOD! :rolleyes:

Carnation, did you verify?
 

Carnation,

Have you spoken to the girls themselves? If in fact they did get bids from groups that they cut, rather than declined with interest, with no invitation or phone call first, it's weird and just plain wrong (especially if they face penalties in COR for not accepting the bid).

On the other hand, sometimes stories get mis-reported as they get second and third hand. Maybe they did get phone calls, but didn't want to admit that they had accepted bid from Cruddy Phi Cruddy when reality set in. (Or maybe they were asked in general if they would accept a bid from someone they didn't pref, but they didn't understand that Cruddy was the group in question.)

If you can find more information, let's look into it. We could get an active or alum at that university to call Greek Life.

It's terrible for Cruddy too. They thought they got some new members when really they didn't. Most groups want people who they think want them. This surprise bid is no good for anyone.

All of these cases I've talked about (this one, similar surprise bid cases, the one with the forced prefs leading to the memberless bid class, the snatched pledge, others) were reported to PH either by me or by other adults as well as the victims. In every case, the victim was brushed off or told she could rush the next year. In the case of the snatched pledge, the affected sorority was brushed off and advised they could just pick up somebody else.

Once pledge classes are formed, it seems that little is done to punish violators; maybe PH is afraid that girls will demand a bid from their group of choice, thus making other groups demand extra members, or take the case to a higher campus court or maybe a real court and embarrass them so they sweep it under the rug. Same goes for cases in which a sorority does something awful to another one during recruitment...about three years ago, one sorority at a nearby school did something planned and horrendous to another one during recruitment. The offending group lost a couple of socials and the victims haven't recovered numberwise to this day.

And don't even get me going about the Greek advisor who felt sorry for a smaller sorority so she put a big group's top 5 from their bid list onto the bid list for a smaller group and vice versa. Boy, were those women (and sororities) surprised when bids came out...and most of the people quit, never to consider Greek life again. I know that our system usually works but there are egregious errors as well. :(