Generic question
 

This may be a dumb question but is a "Membership Recruitment Acceptance" form a bid card?

When I received my bid, I got a little bid card (with the sorority crest and said "Alpha Chi Omega cordially invites Emily to become a new member of the XXXXX XXXXX chapter, XXXXXXXX University") that you could keep as a memento, and I had to fill out a recruitment acceptance form (it had spaces for my name and student ID numbers) to give to the head of Greek Life to formally accept my bid. At least at my school, the bid card and membership acceptance forms were different.

Maybe it would help if I explained the context of the question. My daughter,a sophomore, will be re-rushing this spring at a deferred recruitment school. Sophomores have a separate quota that is determined by "dividing the number of upper-class women signing Membership Recruitment Acceptances by the number of NPC sororities." (That comes from the greek life link of her school's website).

I'm trying to get a sense of when soph quota is determined. Am I reading this right, that it's probably after pref? In other words, let's say 30 upperclass women (I don't think there's a lot of jrs who rush but they would be included in that number) rush and make it through to pref and then sign bid cards. There's 10 sororities - so quota would be 3 sophs for each sorority?

That would seem to me that 1) any juniors that would be going through would be at a severe disadvantage i.e. "competing" with a sophomore for a spot and 2) basing only on the number who makes it through to pref rounds (and sign a bid card) means lots of cutting can be done before pref without "penalty" (for lack of a better word) to the sorority.

It's been so long since I went through rush, that this all seems so fuzzy to me. I thought maybe some of you younguns :) might be able to enlighten and inform me what this all means. Help...and thanks!

it sounds to me like the membership acceptance form might be the form that each potential new member would sign in which they agree to accept any bid that they might receive, and agree that they will be bound to the obligation for one year, whether they complete their new member period and initiate or not. it is a panhellenic form usually signed after the pref parties when the pnms rank their choices. it would not be the actual bid card from a sorority. it would not guarantee them a bid, although most sororities have a rule that if a pnm attends their pref party, they must appear on one of their bid lists.

your quota interpretation seems on target. the "upper classwomen" would not figure into the regular quota figure-they are sort of a bonus, but there would be a limit to how many upperclasswomen could be extended membership. there would be a separate quota for these women.

best wishes to your daughter. please keep us posted!

*breaking out the MOI b/c i always called that a pref card*
membership recruitment acceptance binding agreement is signed after pref parties end. it's the one where women list the sororities in order they like the most. it says that if you get a bid from one of the sororities listed, then she agrees to accept it.

the campus will wait to set total until women have gone through pref and actually signed a card. some women may go through and decide not to sign a card (don't know how common this is on your campus, not common at all on mine) and the campus doesn't want to set a total that is numericaly unattainable.