COB'ing
 

Hi,

Could someone offer some knowledge about Continuous Open Bidding? I am transferring to a small, southern university and several of the sororities are COB'ing. Do these sororities have to approach you or can you approach them? Do I need recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

Best place to start is with the greek life office at your new school. They can tell you if they maintain a signup list that the groups use or if the groups advertise open events or just what the procedure at the school is.

COB is usually very informal and may differ greatly from one school to the next.

Good luck and keep us updated.

I think larger schools tend to have a sign-up sheet of sorts in the Greek Life office. At my school, you just looked for the flyers everywhere from the groups that weren't at total and were holding events and you just showed up wherever the flyer said to be and went from there. It was never exclusive until they got to the invite-only parties, but I can see if a group only had a handful of slots how it may only be by invite and not necessarly advertised at all. Just depends on the campus really. E-mail the Greek Life Advisor and ask them how they work it there. Definitely keep us updated though! :)

I COB'd AXiD (in 1990). A friend of mine from class told me about it... there were some chalkings but unless you were familiar with rush and the sororities on campus, you would have had no idea what it was about. From what I remember, most of the girls were there "by invitation".

The events were very informal, and I knew nothing about Recs, so I don't know if anyone had them. As the parties went on, you had to be invited to even know about the next event.

Good luck on your pursuit.

Depending on the school, make sure to check with your greek life office that you are eligible for COB as a transfer. Some schools have requirements that you must have a certain number of hours at their school before you can rush.

It really varies by school. COB for some groups is rather formal (with multiple parties and an invite-only "pref style" party.) My school had a much less formal system. We invited girls that we knew were interested. We had one or two parties, but girls only attended one. We asked anyone we liked to join and that was that! Asking the Greek Life office first is a good idea, but don't be surprised if you have to let the groups know that you are interested. Good luck!

more questions!
 

Thanks so much for all your advice! I will definitely be contacting the Greek Office.

I have a friend at the school I am transferring to and she has already told her sorority (they are COB'ing) that I am coming and the girl in charge of recruitment has already added me on facebook. All of it has happened so fast! So I have to get an invitation from the sororities to a party and then they decide if they want me?

Thanks again!

Only if that's how that particular school works. Like I said, they may be open events and the orgs will advertise them themselves around campus. If they're by invite only, then you've already done what you can by showing interest in the group and seeing if they'll invite you (and if the recruitment chair already added you to her Facebook, that's a good sign in my book, no pun intended, lol). You really need to call the Greek Life office though, they'll be able to tell you how COB works there. :)

P.S. And don't forget, COB is not like formal recruitment, you decide which groups you go to. You won't automatically meet every group in an organized fashion. If it's open events and the orgs advertise, then you can go to whatever you want. Also keep in mind, that not every org may do COB, if they're already at campus total then they won't have slots to fill, and hence no need to recruit. If they're all by invite, then you may have to talk to some of the members - that gets a little more touchy - someone at a school who does it that way will have to help me out here.

if you are able to secure recommendations for the sororities on your campus, that would be a great way for alumnae to let their respective chapter know that you are interested in cob'ing. that way, if you don't sign up for cob with the greek life office, you would have more chances to attend a cob event at each chapter, since they would already know something about you.

i second (third, fourth?) the suggestion that you contact the greek life office at your new school and find out how cob activities are run there.

it's great that you have a friend in a chapter at your new school. she might be able to shed some light on how her campus does cob. give her a call or get together over christmas break. good luck to you!

as far as cob goes, often it is very informal and the sororities decide when they will hold events. there may be a time frame in which they are allowed to cob(for instance, from the 2nd week in the semester to the 5th week), but then again there may not be. some may throw full blown parties with a theme, while others are more low key and just have pmns come over to the house to watch a favorite tv show. some have a handful of members take a pnm out for coffee or ice cream. some may have events every night for a week, while others may have one or two events one week and one or two the next. usually after meeting the pnm a couple of times, they may make the decision to offer her a bid. some chapters extend cob bids intimately, with one or two sisters meeting the pnm somewhere quiet and offering her the bid. i have also heard of some chapters who do it a little more formally, and do an actual preferential ceremony and offer bids to the girls who attend. it just depends on the climate of the campus and the individual chapter. in that same vein, when a chapter decides not to extend a bid to someone, they may inform the pnm or they may just not call or email them with any more invitations.

It depends on how their parties are structured. There will usually be more than one event before any bids are extended.

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I got my bid the same week.