|
COB is a widespread practice for sororities that did not meet quota or total. For example, my campus total was 85 and formal rush was in the spring semester -January and February. In the fall semester if a sorority had fewer that 85 members, they were free to hold informal rush. In the spring formal rush, we determined quota to be the number of women who completed rush and submitted bid pref cards divided by the number of sororities. That number was usually 32. Any organization that bid matched fewer than quota was eligible to have COB. Theoretically, any woman who went through rush should have been able to get a bid. Unfortunately, that wasn't always the case because many of the Rushees went into rush already knowing which sorority they wanted. Formal rush on my campus worked this way: Day 1: all 7 sororities, day 2: rushees chose four sororities, day 3: sororities invited the rushees they wanted. Rushees would then pref three. Most of the rushees went to the same four sororities and dropped the same three. That almost guaranteed that many would not get a bid. Only three sororities at my school would reach quota and a large number of rushees would wind up without bids because they wanted ABC, AD, or AEF or nothing at all. Many of these women wound up being uninvited to final round as a result. Unfortunately, my sorority was not on the top 4 list so most of the women going through rush were going to drop us. We always had COB and did quite well there. We had to think of more creative ways to recruit. Several of the women who pledged us were friends of sisters. They comprised about half of our pledge class. Keep in mind that every campus is unique in terms of numbers and some policies so this is only one example.
|