Intentional Single Preference (ISP) is Bad
 

Candidly the subject heading was meant to be a PNM eye catcher.

Here's a great example of why a PNM should never ISP:

Just did bid matching yesterday. Every single PNM was matched (Yay!)...with the exception of one.

Had she listed *both* sororities where she preffed, she would have been a quota addition for her first choice. Instead, today, she is without a bid.

Ladies, I implore you, please list all your choices!

At best, you may get your first choice (as this PNM would have).

At "worst", you'll open yourself up to a great set of new experiences with another Greek Letter Organization that will welcome you with open arms.

How do you know that she would have been a QA to her first choice? She may have matched to the house that she left off her card. If she was listed high enough on the second choice's bid list, that is the house that she would have gone to.

Totallyjersey, you don't know that. The other organization may well have been fabulous or it may have been a disastrous choice for her.

She was high on Choice A's list (but still not high enough to make the list). She was low on Choice B's list (so her second choice would have gone unmatched). When quota additions were considered, she became ineligible because she ISPed.

I totally disagree. She didn't like group B enough to put them on their card- didn't want to be in their chapter and didn't want to be a member- it would have been a deal breaker for her or she would have listed them. She doesn't have a crystal ball so she puts down the only chapter she can see herself in. Now if you would have gone to her and told her what you told us here then she probably would have put B down on her card, but again she didn't receive any out side help and had to make a decision based on the information and facts available to her at the time of signing her bid card.

I would give my own daughter the advice not to put ANY chapter down that she couldn't see herself in. She would know that she might not receive a bid, but if she doesn't like the other Chapter and is not going to show up on bid day or quit soon after I think SIP is a better way to go and leaves you more options. When I went through recruitment a 100 years ago I liked both of the Chapters I preferenced. I would have been happy in either one so I would have never considered it.

Although I appreciate your effort to have girls keep an open mind, this is just the kind of thing that ends up biting girls in the ass. Yes, it CAN (and in your example did) happen, but by selling this as a possibility you convince a lot of girls to write down chapters they have no intention of joining.

I would much rather suggest to these girls that unless they really super duper couldn't ever see any way of EVER making it work with the second or third choice, you should write down all of your options. But that is not the same as write down the chapter you despise in hopes of being a QA to the chapter you love.

Take a deep breath, take a moment to consider what it means to be a sister and a friend, and outside of rush what those qualifications would entail, and then maybe think if that 2nd or 3rd choice really doesn't offer that. I would hope that a lot of girls would go, you're right, I don't choose my friends based on how well they do skits or how well they can match clothes with 50 other girls! But some will still only be willing to accept 1 sorority based on whatever her personal criteria are, even if we think she's wrong, narrow-minded or childish. And blowing sunshine up her skirt over possible happy endings doesn't help either her or the chapter she doesn't want.

I see it as an integrity issue.

If she would have listed a chapter from which she would not take a bid, she'd be, at best, trying to game the system. At best.

She, not you, not me, not Greek Chat, is the one who has to live with the outcome of her decisions.

Amen, DGTess.

Thank you, Tess. That was a well worded response. I don't think anyone could say it better.

I attended three preference parties and intentional single preferenced the only chapter I could see myself in. In my case, had I not matched with my first choice, I would have rather not accepted a bid elsewhere. Twenty-one years later, I don't see myself having done anything differently even having a much more Panhellenic outlook.

Sometimes ISP really IS the best choice for a PNM. We can't know what is individually best for a girl and while I do agree that MANY girls can be happy in places they think they cannot, it is NOT the right choice for every girl. I do think that college Panhellenics and Rho Chis need to do a very thorough job explaining how ISP and quota additions work. I've seen girls very disappointed because ISP has bitten them (they didn't rank as highly as they thought they would) and I've seen girls disappointed because they've matched with their second choice in bid matching when they fully intended to refuse a bid from that chapter.

This is a big problem that I don't think we mention enough. A lot of women think there is no way they won't match...and some of them have been led to believe that by the chapter at pref. Dirty rushing/bid promising is responsible for at least a portion of this.

So, it would have worked out in this one particular situation. She's the exception, not the rule. Putting down a chapter from which you would not accept a bid on your MRABA for the sole reason of trying to become a QA is not a good plan. It usually doesn't work out because the chapter is often one that is less popular (and might not make quota), or when QAs are considered, they may go to the smaller chapter, instead of the PNM's preferred chapter, depending on the school. The OP advises at an academically competitive school with a small number of chapters, and I doubt the "tier dynamics" are the same that you'd see in the SEC.

This is the kind of thread that makes me think we should get rid of QAs altogether...because obviously there are PNMs out there who are using their knowledge of them to work the system.

It's not wrong to ISP if you absolutely could not see yourself being happy in one of the chapters you preffed. It is a difficult decision, though. If you ISP, you lose out on the chance of being matched to your first choice as a quota addition (and IIRC you cannot be offered a snap bid), but you're free to go through COR if you don't match. OTOH, if you do not ISP, you run the risk of being matched to the chapter you can't see yourself in, and then you're bound to that chapter for one year, meaning no COR ... but you can pledge that chapter you think is so awful, and you may find that you like them, and if not, you can always depledge and rerush next year.