Mystery New Members on Bid Day
 

We were discussing this on another thread and then I remembered I'd heard of several cases of it happening recently. The scenario: a sorority cuts a girl earlier than prefs and she shows up in their chapter room on Bid Day. Her name is on the new member list and no one can account for that (not the chapter, the advisors, or Panhellenic). What do you do? You're at quota, there were other girls on your second list who should've been there before this relative stranger, and yet how can you say, "Excuse me, there's been some mistake, adios"?

I recently brought this up to my daughters and one said that this happened in her chapter. She said that all concerned were so surprised and the girl appeared to be okay so they let her stay--she never knew what happened--and she ended up being a good member.

??

We went to the girls' rooms/apartments to pick them up, so obviously we had to have our list of who we were getting before bid day got started. The rush director picked it up and we were all at the house waiting to hear the results. I assure you, if Batshit Betty who NONE of us liked and who we already cut was on that list, we would have been at the GA's office in a split second asking WTF happened and demanding her removal. It would have been taken care of before the festivities started.

I can't imagine going to bid day "blind" or with no one but the rush director knowing who was showing up. That just sounds like opening the door to all sorts of abuses of power.

I haven't talked to anyone who said there was a crazy person show up--they were just average people, likeable, but who had been cut before prefs because there were others they wanted more. I suppose if "THAT" girl, you get my drift, had shown up, the chapters would have been freaking out but that's not what's been happening.

I've seen a girl show up after being cut before prefs because Panhellenic mixed her up with someone with the same name (the sorority actually did go back and pick her up when they lost a pledge a month later, I think they felt really bad about having to tell her she wasn't really a pledge) but this is different!

I actually have witnessed this happening. I was an advisor on a smaller campus with three chapters: AAA, BBB and CCC. On pref day, the girl in question had only been invited back to BBB. Her sister was in a chapter not on this campus, but on a larger campus. Her sister told her to put any chapter down that she'd like to join when she turned in her card. She put AAA first (even though they did not invite her to pref), then BBB, then CCC. There were only 25-28 PNMs and the campus had set quota too high. So AAA filled right away. Then BBB. CCC never did reach quota. This girl would have been the only woman who attended pref who did not get a bid, so the Greek Director said that CCC could offer a bid the PNM if they wanted to and it was no secret their national organization was on them to grow because they were much smaller than the other two, so the rush advisor who had never met Polly PNM put her on the bid list. The CCCs had no idea what happened on Bid Day when she showed up and was in their new member class. As far as I know, she was a member in good standing until she graduated.

Well, maybe batshit was a bit much LOL. The fact is, we didn't cut a whole lot of people, so if someone we HAD cut had shown up on our list, we would have known someone other than us put her there. I'm sure that the other chapters on campus would say the same thing.

I guess it depends where in the process they were released. If your recruitment has open house, two invite rounds, and pref, I'd assume most women making it to second invite are not so horrible your chapter can't handle having them as NM's. I just don't see what would be accomplished by booting them instead of welcoming them as part of the class.

(NB: This has something to do with chapter size, too...in a chapter of 100+ women, it's hard for me to believe that someone would genuinely be a "bad fit")

I advise a chapter of 200+ women, and I can attest to the fact that there can be a "bad fit" in a chapter that size. There are so many variables to consider. It does happen.

If chapters are noticing this as a trend at their campus, they should contact their network/HQ officers for help. This is not something that should be handled strictly at a local level. GAs who want to act unilaterally to place women who end up with no bid need to work within the system. Unfortunately, not every chapter is magnanimous enough to welcome these women whole heartedly.

I can think of several women who would be openly ugly to surprise members. :mad: No need for that, as a surprise bid would probably shock a PNM too. I have known, unfortunately, of not a few women who acted ugly towards new members whom they felt were "slip-throughs".

I do relish the memory of one "slip-through" who ended up being a TGC for her sorority. Take that, snarky members!

Too true!

No, that's not the point. If the majority of people say they didn't vote in a way that is standard for women to receive a bid in the organization, she shouldn't get a bid, no matter how blandly inoffensive she is. If the wishes of the members are going to be overridden by the GA/alumnae/rush chair, why bother going through the fallacy of voting on PNMs?

Yeah, it sucks for the rushee, but the whole chapter shouldn't have to pay for something that one person decided and take a member they didn't want. One person tried to do a slip through, got called on their crap, and now has to explain to the rushee.

It's really hard to talk about how "okay" this is without getting too deeply into MS procedures, which of course are different for every group.

I think it really depends on WTF happened. If it's shenanigans by the GA, that's one thing. If it's shenanigans by the alumnae or rush chair, now you're talking about the possibility that they prevented this woman from getting a bid somewhere else. If that's what happened, and the chapter then revokes the woman's bid, that chapter should be sanctioned by the CPH.

If the girl is "blandly inoffensive" the chapter is not paying for the mistake, the girl is. Yes, she wouldn't have received a bid anyway, but that is far preferable than to receive one, get excited, then get it taken away.