Alumnae, what's your bid day story?
 

All this talk of Bid Day makes it seem like just yesterday, even if it was (yikes!) 20 years ago for me. What fond memories do you have of the day you received your bid?

My roommate and I both preffed the maximum two chapters, and listed Kappa first on our bid cards. We were supposed to receive our bids at noon on Saturday. We waited in our dorm room together, and waited and waited...
At 1:00 or so our Rho Chi's came to tell us that there was a problem with bid matching, and "the alums had messed it up." More excruciating waiting...

Finally, after 3:00 our Rho Chis returned with our bids. We both got Kappa and were thrilled!

So, what's your story?

Hmm- it's all an ancient blur to me now... j/k. I went to Florida State and rush was such a big deal there. I think it still is, and I'm so surprised we don't have some GC'ers from FSU.

I was SO naive that I never doubted for a moment that I would get a bid to my first choice. How dumb was that?
I was the first person in my family to go through rush, so there was no nervous nelly mom to deal with, or a sister or aunt to get me riled up.while I was going through rush. Not like my friend in the room next door, who had five generations of family before her in ADPi. (She went ADPi and made it six)
I just walked in to the Student Union when the doors opened, asked if there was a bid card envelope in my file, and smiled from ear to ear when I saw Delta Gamma.
I went on to become Rush Chairman and realized how lucky I had been to get my first choice!

Hey, AnchorAlum, I was Rush Chairman too! It's hard to remember to say "Recruitment Chairman" isn't it?

I COB'd into a local sorority after dropping out of formal rush. It was their first-ever rush, held immediately following FR, so one of the rho chi's from FR stayed deaffiliated an extra week to act as "our rho chi". (Thankfully, not the evil hell-b!tch who was my PX from formal rush :p)

We rushees (:p) were told to gather at a particular location on bid day. The PX took each of us one by one into a side corridor and told us whether we'd gotten a bid or not. I was the first to arrive, so I was the first to find out... YES! So I was the first new member at the bid day party.

We also had to rank the sisters in order of how much we wanted each of them as our big sister, so I got my big that day too.

I was the first in my family to go greek. When I called my parents to give them the good news, my dad said "You did WHAT?!?!" (he's anti-greek as I then found out :( ) but my mom was so thrilled. :)

Bumping this...dying to hear more stories

Our Pref parties ended at 11pm on a Wednesday night, and we had to sign our bid cards on Thursday before noon. We were told that we would get a call before 5pm if we weren't matched.

I had put Alpha Delta Pi first, and Kappa Kappa Gamma second. Around 4pm, I started crying, saying, "I don't WANT to be a Kappa!" and everyone kept telling me that it was too late. I was miserable - but no call came!

So, all of the pnms stood outside of the Greek Advisor's Office, and one by one, we entered the closed office, and were handed our Bid and a sterling letter opener with which to open it. The envelope was small, with blue trim, and my heart sank. I slit the envelope and pulled out a Bid from... Alpha Delta Pi!!! I shrieked with delight, and was told to go directly to Amos Hall (where all the sororities but Kappa Kappa Gamma & Kappa Alpha Theta were).

When the elevator door opened, there stood all of my new sisters, singing and clapping and hugging and crying! This continued until all of the new member arrived, and then we had our pledging ceremony.

We were so scared at that part that, yes, we all actually DID say, "I, Your Name..." instead of our names! One sister said, "Uh, oh...!" and it really broke the tension!

Since ADPi is on the top floor of Amos Hall, the tradition was that we would all go into the stairwell and "stomp" while counting the number of new members. The next sorority down would do the same thing, and so on.

There was an All Greek Mixer that night, where we found out that we had the largest pledge class on campus, which was terribly exciting! A lot of the Kappa sisters came over to hug & congratulate me, and I'll always feel a little bad that the sister who had been my sponsor started to cry. :(

The next day, we wore both our pledge pins and ribbons with our colors under it to class. A guy with whom I had had a few study dates was upset that I was "a sorority chick" but even that couldn't make me lose my high.

And my mom & dad were thrilled for me - not at all upset that I hadn't gone Kappa! As a pledge gift, they promised me the pin of my choice.

It was a happy, happy experience! :)

Awww, now that's a sweet story!

My eventual big sis met me after class one day and presented my bid to me (I was a COB girl.) I then went to the Greek Advisor's office to sign the appropriate paperwork and voila, I was an AOII pledge!

After I got my bid, I ran back to my dorm, and went to see one of my friends who was already a DG. We hugged and exclaimed that now we are sisters! As I got ready for Bid Day, all of my friends kept coming into my room asking me which house I was in... I didn't talk about rush with them since I didn't want to jinx anything.

So i am not an alum, yet...(i have one more year to go)...but i wanted to share my story. My school only has 2 sororities...so it's either, choose one, the other, or none. The entire week was a blur, I made great friends with all the girls that i rushed with (it was still RUSH when i went through it). I knew a lot of them were going to put the other sorority first...and i didn't want to loose them as friends (silly me, i thought you loose the friends who pledge the other sorority). so i put the other one first. i went back to my dorm, sat down in the common area and my friends came in. they saw the look on my face, said i looked like my dog just died...i told them what i did, and i started crying. i knew i had made a mistake. so i ran back to the bid-matching room, banged on the door and told the panhellenic council that i NEEDED to switch my bid-card. i cried and cried, and they finally let me. i woke up the next day and left my room so my PX could drop my bid-card off. I sat at a table eating breakfast w/ a girl who would soon be my pledge sister. I ran back and grabbed my bid card off the floor. The moment I saw the purple pen, I knew I was in...I ran to the front of this georgous building on my campus to where all my new sisters were cheering...my soon to be big sister ran out of the crowd and gave me the biggest hug (she was also the rush director). We got inducted, got to know the girls, etc...and when i went back to my room it was decorated with balloons and a sign welcoming me to the sisterhood. I am now the recruitment director for my chapter and love bid day most of all when i get to be the one welcoming in new sisters! P.S. I am still great friends with the girls who i went through rush with.

As an "older" PNM, it was a little weird walking into the Great Hall to receive my bid with all these "younger" freshmen :) I started talking before we went in with another woman, and we wound up sitting next to each other as we watched a Greek spirit video and listen to a couple of talks by the Greek advisor and PH President. After the Rho Chi's reaffiliated, we were all given the chance to open our bid cards (which, up to this point, we'd been either standing on or sitting on!) I opened mine and was thrilled to see my first choice staring back at me, and the woman that I had talked to opened hers...we were both ADPis!!! We shrieked and gave each other these huge hugs, not even knowing what each other's name was. We then met up with the rest of the new Alphas, and since we didn't have a Rho Chi that year, one of the Deltas came over from the chapter room to meet us all. She taught us a couple of cheers, and just looking around at the faces of all my new sisters, I was so excited to be home. We walked back to the CR, and I think I was the first one into the room with the sisters lined up in two facing rows (think dancing down rows like in Grease or She's All That) whooping and hollering! We sat on the couches and they gave us our bid day bags, which was so wonderful. (Unfortunately, I had to leave 5 minutes later because I had to be at a choir performance and then I came back afterwards, but I missed out on the bid day picture!) We spent the rest of the night playing games and learning more cheers, and I think about my bid night everytime I hear about another woman's bid day or help out at recruitment at my university.

Now I wish I was still in college with my chapter....:( :)