What Happened
 

So I went through formal rush, and preffed the two fraternities that I was interested in went between the two houses over the last couple of days one of the fraternities I rushed turns out i went to high school with the rush chair. Me and this person do not exactly get along so even though the president of the fraternity as well as every member that I talked to liked me I wasn't surprised when i wasn't given a bid however the other fraternity I got along with everybody great as a matter of fact the Rush chair said see you this weekend (talking about initiation) when i was leaving the house the night before bids were given. I'm a pretty social guy. I'm really quite surprised i didn't get a bid i messaged the president on fb i explained that though i was disappointed i still felt like i fit the best there and ask him about the open bid process. I understand you all can't give statistics and such for how many people get bids or where i went wrong but maybe you guys can give me some perspective on where most guys go wrong also was it appropriate for me to message him on fb he messaged me the last night before bids and told me he was glad to meet me and all that good stuff and would it be appropriate for me to hang around and hope for an open bid??

As you said, we don't know what happened. There are many things that could have "gone wrong," but since none of us are members of those chapters, we can't tell you what it was.

I've never heard of an open bid. I'm assuming it's like a snap bid, but I've never heard of a fraternity giving those out.

It was explained to me that after induction if there are still openings they will offer those bids I don't know what a snap bid is lol but would I be better off waiting until next semester or should i go ahead and try to fill an open spot I do have a legacy at this fraternity but frankly i don't believe in legacy's i think a person should be accepted based on them not their parents also one thing i left out was that I'm a 20 year old freshman after graduating high school I joined the army for two years does that maybe scare the fraternity off?

I see. I didn't know fraternities did that, as we typically don't have quotas and, thus, have no "openings" to fill.

As far as whether you should do it now or next semester -- that's a decision you need to make for yourself. Good luck.

Maybe, maybe not. The reasons for offering or not offering a bid can vary widely. Only the chapters you're talking about know why they made the decisions they did. There are so many variables, we can't even guess.

A suggestion though: Periods to denote the end of sentences and proper capitalization would make your posts much easier to read. I don't know if the messages you sent the chapter president were like your posts here, but I had to read them multiple times to figure out what you were saying. Rush is the time to be making the best impression you can.

And finally, thank you for your service!

I realize that nobody knows the actual reason I wasn't offered a bid. Which is why I asked for insight on why a person "NORMALLY" wouldn't receive a bid. I attempted to resolve the issue the only way I knew how, I asked the person at the top. This leads to the second part of the question was that an appropriate way to handle the situation. I plan to explore the other fraternity's over the next few weeks. The reason I'm asking, honestly I don't want to end up in this situation in the future; it was a complete surprise when I didn't receive the bid. As for punctuation and grammar , I'm sorry I have been doing online test all day which requires me to lock down my web browser so I have posted the last few comments from my phone.

If your school has some sort of rules around the maximum a chapter can take (and you make it sound as though they do), there very simply could have been fewer spots than guys rushing.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing you're just not going to get answers to and if you dwell on it you'll make yourself crazy. Widen your net a bit. Maybe there's another fraternity out there for you. I know this isn't sorority rush where you are asked to "maximize your options," but you may have overly narrowed your focus.

The thing is, there is no "normally" reason. There can be so many possibilities, the only way I know how to answer is that the chapter decided he wasn't a good fit, or as good a fit as some other rushees who filled up slots first (if there was a limit on how many to take). Why they decided that is impossible to guess.

Others may have different opinions, but as a general rule, I don't think you want to ask why you didn't get a bid, but I think it's okay to ask (once and of one person) if there's anything you ought to know about doing things differently in the future. I also think it's okay to say you're still interested if you are, as long as you aren't annoying about it. In this case, your message doesn't seem to have rubbed the president the wrong way, but you never want to put anyone on the spot.

Hope the test went well.