If you get to Pref Night, does this guarantee a bid?
 

If you get to pref night and you're invited back to 2 -3 houses, and you rank your houses in order of preference, and you like all three equally, but your ranks don't necessarily match up with the houses ranks, do you still get a bid from at least 1 of the houses? (in general) barring any major faux pas?

Actually, that would be considered Membership Selection information, which is very much a members only discussion.

But being invited back to three Pref parties is a very good sign, in general.

It depends upon quite a few things- 1 do they have guaranteed bidding? meaning if a PNM goes through and attends all houses and all parties they are guaranteed a bid from one of their houses.

If there is not guaranteed bidding there is a chance, but not likely, that a PNM would not get a bid. If a panhellenic is also doing quota additions (Quota plus girls who may not have matched) it is likely a PNM will get a bid from one of the three houses. But as I said, there are always weird things that happen. The goal is that as many PNMs that go through the process are matched.

Hopefully that is helpful. When is bid day?

There are no guarantees, but the fact your daughter made it this far and is happy with all her options puts her in the best possible position at this stage of the game- well ahead of most PNMs. From this point, odds are she will get a great outcome- but given the stakes it will be hard for anyone here to make guarantees that do not exist.

I know that is not the 100% you hope for, but rest assured it is as good as it gets and I am sure I am not alone in wishing her the best and hoping you will have great news to report very soon.

Fingers crossed and good luck!

This will all depend if a campus Panhellenic has a guaranteed matching policy. Some campus Panhellenics will guarantee a bid to any PNM who attends at least one preference party, has maximized her options throughout recruitment and ranks all chapters where she attended preference. This is to discourage suiciding, or not ranking all of your options. Even if she is at the bottom of both/all of her preference chapters, if the campus has this policy she should get a bid. Every PNM who attends preference is on the chapter's bid list somewhere.

However, if a campus does not guarantee a match to PNMs who maximize their options, of course, there are no guarantees.

And there are never any guarantees when a PNM suicides or ranks 2 of 3 chapters regardless of the matching policy.

being invited to prefs does not guarantee a bid.

if it did, Rho Chis would not have to make "those calls" right before bid day.

what exactly does it mean if a PNM suicides? I dont think I have heard anyone in my chapter ever use that term but I see it on here a lot

The University of Kansas guarantees a bid to anyone who attends pref ceremonies and maximizes her options.

Maybe I'm just accustomed to my own system, but it seems unnecessarily harsh to have PNMs making it all the way to pref (and maximizing their options) and then receiving no bids.

"Those" calls are limited only to women who ranked only 1 or 2 chapters and didn't receive a bid from either house. I've never heard of this happening around here, but I'm sure there are a few cases every year and I just don't get wind of it. It's more common that a PNM is dropped from recruitment after second invites.

Many chapters (I'm sure not all) will place PNMs somewhere on their bid list after pref. Now where on the list and how bids are matched is another story. On my campus it is highly likely that a PNM who has maximized her options will get a bid somewhere but, as in life, there are no guarantees.

As has already been said, this is treading very close to membership selection information which is for members only.

I don't understand. Membership selection involves how a house chooses its new sisters.

Bid matching, Panhellenic rules, etc. should not, in my mind, be considered "membership selection".

What am I missing? Mind you, I did not go through a formal rush of the same type many of you have. At my school, and in my day (all well removed from here) Panhellenic was only minimally involved by setting rush week and then staying out of the process. So I may well not have all the information that would make this obvious to me.

^^You are right, understanding bid matching is really not treading on membership selection criteria.

However, pref round/bid matching practices can vary from campus to campus and depend on the system the panhellenic office uses to match girls to chapters.

If your campus uses the Release Figures Method, and a pnm maximizes her options on pref round. (in layman's terms - accepts an invitation to every house who invites her back on pref night) Then, she is guaranteed a bid at one of those houses.

On campuses where this is not the system, then there is a chance that a pnm could attend the maximum number of parties on pref night and still not receive a bid.

NPC rules say that all PNMs that attend a pref event for a chapter are on their bid list somewhere.

Quota additions are for those PNM's that don't match during formal bid matching but that maximized their options. This is no isp-ing but also no idp-ing (intentional double pref when they went to 3 but only put down 2). Everyone else is eligible and NPC did away with the 5% rule so all women can pretty much be matched. Guarantee placement, unless it is requiring the ISP and IDP group to be placed is pretty much obsolete.

Campuses I've worked with this year have had 100% placement of maximizing PNMs.