[Greek_or_Geek?]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Almost. Putting down 2 out of 3 chapters carries the same penalty as putting down a single chapter: you are no longer guaranteed a placement, or, more formally, you are not eligible to be a quota addition if you don't match. You may still get a placement, if you are high enough on a bid list, but if you are not high enough, you will go without a bid. That much is correct.

What is less clear is what happens if you list all three and aren't high enough on ANY of the bid lists to get a bid. In that case, you could end up in any one of the three chapters, depending on how quota additions are placed (and I don't know the rules at every school; it seems there is no uniform method).

This causes all sorts of confusion, because Rho Gams tell women that putting down your third choice gives you a better shot at getting a bid to your first or second choice, which may be technically true (as you can be placed in one of them as a quota addition, whereas you can't if you don't list all three), but it's a bad, bad, bad thing for a Rho Gam to say, because the chances of it happening are extremely small, as all three chapters would have to take quota without you matching somewhere. The far, far, far more likely outcome is that you'd match to your third-choice chapter, because the chapter PNM's dislike so much they won't even consider it is usually the chapter that also struggles to fill quota.

This. Sadly the third chapter is usually the weakest one. It's called guaranteed placement not guaranteed favorite.