A question...
 

That I guarantee has been answered on here, but the search function is not working for me!

It seems like a silly question, but bear with me.

I am currently running recruitment, and I was only invited back to one party for the last round tomorrow. Our recruitment handbook says to sign at least 2 sororities you would be interested in... would this still apply to me, since I am only attending one party? Or do they just want an idea of what you would like if another were to decided to bid you?

I know it's different for every chapter and school, but in a general sense what is the norm here?

Obviously, there are so many rules I am not fully aware of.

Is your last round your preference round? Are you only invited to a max of 2 parties tomorrow? It sounds like your handbook is assuming you would have 2 parties for the last round but that is not always the case. It is encouraged to list all sororities ( in your school's case the max of 2) on your pref card, so I think that is what it is talking about. Since you only are attending one party you just need to list that one party (assuming you are comfortable with getting a bid to this sorority). Hope this helps.

If you are willing to accept a bid from one of the groups who did not invite you to pref, you can list them. That way, if you do not get matched to the one group you are attending and the other group can snap bid, they might consider giving you a bid.

This depends on the school. At mine, you could only list the ones you attended for Pref, and snap bids were not based on bid cards. Check with your recruitment counselor and/or the Greek life office to find out about your options. I'm sure they will be readily available after Prefs when ladies are signing bid cards.

Okay, thanks ladies! Really helpful! :D

The house I went to was my first choice anyway, but I was really hoping a particular one of the other houses was interested. It was a little funny though, because the girls that really wanted to visit that house weren't invited, and a bit more than half who were had turned them down :confused:

Too bad for them I guess! I'd still visit if they wanted me though.

I'm sorry you campus does this as it is not what NPC prefers. See page MR-52 of the NPC Manual of Information (the "green book") where they have the printed copy of the bid cardone signs. At the bottom, item #2: The Potential New Member is encouragedto list on this card names of all fraternities from which she is willing to accept a bid to membership." Perhaps you should show this to your Greek Adviser and ask him/her to talk with the NPC Area Adviser about how to begin implementing it on your campus.

You should not list the names of chapters you did not visit during preference on your MRABA. There are some campuses that let PNMs list chapters whose events they did not attend and it makes RFM more difficult to manage.

In the Jan 2009 MOI Page MR-58 #2

I may limit my choices to one or list any women’s fraternity whose preference (last) event I attended and from which I am willing to accept membership.

"May" being the operative word. I know someone who actually listed someone whose pref she did not attend. She got a snap bid from them and accepted and all is well. It happened this year. So it can happen....

well, i didn't get bid. it's fine i guess, sort of expected it.

maybe later, who knows!

thanks for the help anyways ladies!

sorry to hear that Mally, good luck in the future.

awe, thanks doll :)

On my campus, I was invited to write in a third option in the event that I didn't get a bid at my max of two preference parties. I don't know if they still do this or not, I'll ask around.

If a campus uses ICS or CD or any other computer matching software, then it does not make sense to list a chapter that a PNM did not pref. The chapter can only put people who attended their preference parties on their bid list, so the PNM will never match. Also with computer systems, chapters (advisors) never know what PNMs actually ranked first, second, third, etc. So if a PNM only attends pref A but would be willing to join B, B never sees that. 95% of campuses set up their computer system to where PNMs can only rank chapters that they attended anyway (preferred method).

Campuses that still do hand matching, however, have the PNM MRABAs right there on the table, and the advisors can see additional choices that PNM's list. So if B doesn't match to Quota, and the PNM above did not match to A, then B can offer her a snap bid - knowing that she's interested. B probably would have called the mismatches they were interested in anyway, even if they hadn't listed them on their MRABA.

So listing chapters that you didn't pref doesn't help. But at hand matching campuses, it doesn't hurt, either.

First, Mally I'm sorry it didn't work out- best of luck to you!

This is how it worked on my campus. Everything was hand matched, and if a chapter didn't get up to quota they snap bidded whomever they were interested in. If someone didn't match and listed a chapter she didn't pref, I am pretty sure the chapter never found out- they just knew she didn't match and was available for a snap. That's why it's important to know how things work on a particular campus. Everyone has a slightly different interpretation of the rules (may=optional vs. may=required, etc) and different ways of doing things.

Yes - Mally, I hope things work out for you in the future and wish you the best.

I think we will all be hearing more about this in the near future because it was addressed in my NPC Area Advisor meeting this year.

The "may" in the sentence is really only meant to address the first part of the sentence and the fact that a PNM can single intentional preference if they so desire. This language was clarified because a CPH can not force a PNM into listing two or more chapters if she will not accept a bid from the chapters lists on her MRABA. There have been a few instances when a CPHs has strongly encouraged women to maximize their options and list two chapter on their MRABA in hope of becoming a Quota Addition for chapter A. Unfortunaly when the PNM could not be placed as a Quota Addition for Chapter A, was were matched with chapter B and never wanted to be in Chapter B and therefore declined their bid a whole host of other issues is created. NPC AAs are now working with CPHs so make sure the MRABA script is being used at all times.

I am glad that things worked out for those PNMs and Chapters where listing the additional chapters created an easy snap bid via hand matching. I can see where this process would expedite snap bidding for hand matching campus.

If you are on a campus that uses RFM expect to hear more about this issue before your next formal recruitment. Your RFM specialists will want PNMs to only lists chapters of which they attend events through out recruitment. Snap bids can then be done quickly and painlessly as needed at the conclusion of bid matching.