From Pref Night to Bid Day: What happens?

[Titchou]

Yes but I was answering the question before from someone else. They felt she would suffer from her name beginning simply with Z but she'd also suffer under the old system as she'd be put aside and maybe matched to her second choice before she made it as a QA whereas now she's more likely to be a QA as it's not limited to 5% of quota any more.


Does that make more sense?

[WCsweet<3]

Originally Posted by TSteven

Maybe I’m misreading this, but if 11 women ranked XYZ first and quota is 10, wouldn’t only 10 women be listed - in alpha order - on XYZ’s first bid list? And as such, the woman who did not make XYZ’s first bid list (i.e. the 11th woman) would be ranked on their second bid list.

So if this is true, then it shouldn’t matter where she fell alphabetically as she was never on XYZ’s first bid list and XYZ met quota before it had to move to the second bid list.

This is how I understood it.

[Titchou]

I understand it in my head but may not be explaining it well.

[BraveMaroon]

Originally Posted by TSteven

Maybe I’m misreading this, but if 11 women ranked XYZ first and quota is 10, wouldn’t only 10 women be listed - in alpha order - on XYZ’s first bid list? And as such, the woman who did not make XYZ’s first bid list (i.e. the 11th woman) would be ranked on their second bid list.

So if this is true, then it shouldn’t matter where she fell alphabetically as she was never on XYZ’s first bid list and XYZ met quota before it had to move to the second bid list.

I think the alphabetical order may be misleading.

Presumably, the sororities have an idea, even if it's just an educated guess, as to what quota will be. They'll put the most effort into the order of that estimated number plus a cushion. Because they don't want a girl they would just die without to be their #11 who slips through the cracks any more than that girl does. Based on what I remember, alpha had little to do with any position on the list.

For example, Laura Legacy will probably trump Amy Aardvark.

[AZTheta]

I *think* it's easiest to understand in terms of alphabetical order for logistics; what sort of chaos would ensue if there was no systematic method to manage all those names? Let's see... throw all the names into a hat, pull out a name at a time, shout it out, and see who has the PNM listed and where? Oh that would be a LOT of fun.

Alphabetically speaking: Amy Aardvark might be first in the PNM list, but her first choice (ZZ) may have her as number 40 on their second list; and Amy's second choice (CC) might have her as number 23 on their first list. So Amy goes to CC and not ZZ, right?

Laura Legacy might or might not trump Amy, depending on each GLO's legacy policy. Just sayin'... and I don't want to get any further into details. Or I might get thrown into the Violet Volcano.

[Titchou]

Used to when it was done by hand, the first bid list (# of quota) was in alpha order. Now, with the advent of the computer, the first list doesn't have to be in alpha order even with hand bid matching - even though I think it's easier to do in alpha order. The second list is in order of preference and always has been. And it's easier to keep the cards in alpha order as you've been doing that all along with the first bid list and some groups may still be on their first list and some on their second. I tried to copy and paste from the MOI but it's about 3 pages long and just didn't work well. But suffice it to say, the women are matched to the chapter's list.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by AZTheta

Alphabetically speaking: Amy Aardvark might be first in the PNM list, but her first choice (ZZ) may have her as number 40 on their second list; and Amy's second choice (CC) might have her as number 23 on their first list. So Amy goes to CC and not ZZ, right?

Depends on quota and how many of ZZ's top choices chose them. If quota is 39, but one of the women on ZZ's first list matches elsewhere, Amy moves onto their first list. Her choice (ZZ over CC) trumps the fact that CC wants her more than ZZ does.

[DubaiSis]

I think discussion of how it was back in the old days just muddies the water over how it happens now. Suffice it to say there was much hand-wringing, clutching at pearls and hijinks going on that now can't happen. I think a lot of the negative chatter about a struggling chapter goes away because there's really no one except the RFM expert who might now that ABC chapter didn't get a single person from their first list, or whatever. It's more clinical and less open to gossip. Not that there is NOT gossip, but I'd bet that more than a little of it is rumor and not fact.

[ASTalumna06]

So if I have this straight... let's say, to keep things simple, that quota is 10. Then ABC would have 10 girls on their first bid list, in whatever order they desired. I'll do alphabetical, since that's what everyone is discussing:

Amber
Brenda
Cassie
Danielle
Emily
Felicia
Grace
Haley
Irene
Jackie

Assuming that they all listed ABC as their #1 choice, then they would all receive bids to ABC. The end. If, on the other hand, Cassie, Felicia, and Jackie all matched with DEF, then there would be 3 spots left, which would require a jump to ABC's second bid list.. which would be in the order that ABC preferred to bid them. So if the first 5 people on the list were:

1 Stephanie
2 Tanya
3 Alyssa
4 Melissa
5 Laura

.. and Stephanie matched to ABC, she would make new member #8. If Tanya matched with DEF, then they would move on to Alyssa, and so on and so forth until they reached 10 new members.

So the order of PNMs is irrelevant for the first bid list, but it's clearly important for all of the bid lists after that.

Correct?

[AZ-AlphaXi]

Correct!!

[Titchou]

Yes, absolutely.

[ASTalumna06]

Woot!

[ForeverRoses]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

You're off.
The chapters gather their list of everyone who attended preference parties, in preference order. They electronically send this list in to rush HQ. The rushees' requests (which are also in preference order) are submitted electonically. All of the lists are run through a program that figures out what quota will be for the maximum amount of placement. Then, any girls who are left unmatched will be assigned quota addition positions. So if it is determined that the most girls will be matched if quota is 40, but there are 10 girls who still don't get matched, they WILL be put into a chapter, as long as they attended every preference party to which they were invited and then put every one of those chapters on the bid card. If they put down less than the total number of options they had and they didn't get placed, then they're SOL. And this is why we tell the girls that they should think long and hard before not listing one or more of the houses to which they attended preference parties. The truth is if you are willing to play along, you'd probably be happy in any sorority on campus.

And, by the way, disregard all of the above if you are talking about Indiana which is a whole number pile of fish.

Hey now, Indiana does the bolded part! (nothing like sitting through a two hour recruitment adviser training session on bid matching only to have the person running say- oh- none of this really applies to you).

[Titchou]

Well, just about everybody does it electronically now. there are exceptions.

[DubaiSis]

Oh ForeverRoses, I know. But to try to get into how IU follows all the rules EXCEPT they all set their own quota, and some will take quota additions and some won't, so there are lots and lots of girls who go unmatched no matter how well their rush goes is just a whole lotta mouthful unless she is actually asking about IU specifically. And as far as I know, Nebraska has the same rules but it never seems to be a problem and one school requires all girls who go through rush get placed. And then there are the schools that are still totally last century who aren't following RFM (although they are apparently very few) and a few who haven't bought the software because they have so few girls going through rush. But the vast majority work in the way explained above.

We love our special snowflakes who keep it interesting, on both sides of the door!