"Forced" prefs?

[honeychile]

Originally posted by aephi alum
This is my understanding of how it should work.

Formal Recruitment: You attend however many pref parties, then you fill out your pref card and sign it. Signing your pref card indicates that you agree to accept a bid from any sorority that you list. If you receive a bid to a group you listed but don't like, you do not have to pledge, but you cannot pledge any other group for 1 calendar year. You can participate in formal rush the next year or in COB rush any time after the one-year period is up.

Snap Bids: If you receive a snap bid at the end of formal rush, from a sorority that was not listed on your pref card, you don't have to accept it. If you don't accept it, the one-year rule does not apply and you can do COB. If you do accept, pledge, then depledge, you are bound to that group for 1 year (I believe it's from the date you pledge, so you'd be able to do FR again the next year).

Informal Recruitment: If you receive a bid after participating in informal recruitment, you don't have to accept it. Again, if you don't accept, the one-year rule does not apply. If you pledge then depledge, you're bound for a year.

This is my understanding, too. I can fully understand making the pnms accept the maximum number of parties - for those of you who doubt the effectiveness of this, one of the happiest New Members on GreekChat had originally cut the sorority to which she has now pledged!

But forcing someone to sign a bid card is absolutely wrong. The pnm should always have the option of accepting no bids, bids only from the groups she lists, or suiciding.

[polarpi]

Originally posted by aephi alum
This is my understanding of how it should work.

Formal Recruitment: You attend however many pref parties, then you fill out your pref card and sign it. Signing your pref card indicates that you agree to accept a bid from any sorority that you list. If you receive a bid to a group you listed but don't like, you do not have to pledge, but you cannot pledge any other group for 1 calendar year. You can participate in formal rush the next year or in COB rush any time after the one-year period is up.

Snap Bids: If you receive a snap bid at the end of formal rush, from a sorority that was not listed on your pref card, you don't have to accept it. If you don't accept it, the one-year rule does not apply and you can do COB. If you do accept, pledge, then depledge, you are bound to that group for 1 year (I believe it's from the date you pledge, so you'd be able to do FR again the next year).

Informal Recruitment: If you receive a bid after participating in informal recruitment, you don't have to accept it. Again, if you don't accept, the one-year rule does not apply. If you pledge then depledge, you're bound for a year.

This is how it works at my school, which is why I'm still confused....

The year before I went through recruitment, a girl joined my sorority (she's in the bid day picture and everything), but then decided she didn't want to be in our chapter, so she withdrew from new member program. After the summer, we come back and she accepts a bid from XYZ sorority. At our school, if you sign your bid card, that's a binding contract (and we are supposed to put down the two parties we go to for pref, but I don't think they bully us into it). If you miss a party (but have a valid excuse as to why you missed it: class, driving 3 hours to another university to take an exam, etc) then the sororities are not supposed to punish you for missing the party...unfortunately, that did happen to me but in the long run it was better that they did because I found my home in a chapter I didn't even really have on my radar when I began recruitment!

[carnation]

Here's a thread I referred to earlier although I still think there may be another one I started on the same subject later. I am still anti-forced pref parties. in case PH thinks they hugely benefit the smaller groups, I remember the story of one group that had 2 full pref parties on Pref Night (the school required that PNMs go to all prefs they were invited to or be dismissed from recruitment) but no one ran to them on Bid Day. Talk about depressing, to say the least.

[Greek_or_Geek?]

Originally Posted by carnation

Here's a thread I referred to earlier although I still think there may be another one I started on the same subject later. I am still anti-forced pref parties. in case PH thinks they hugely benefit the smaller groups, I remember the story of one group that had 2 full pref parties on Pref Night (the school required that PNMs go to all prefs they were invited to or be dismissed from recruitment) but no one ran to them on Bid Day. Talk about depressing, to say the least.

No one? Literally no one? Surely this is a bit of hyperbole. Even on the most rigidly tiered campi I've advised and observed, some girls do show up for bid day. As for the ones who don't, they need to get over themselves because they never seem to believe they would not have received a bid at all if that one undesirable chapter hadn't been in their preference equation.

Would you prefer that the undesirable chapter not have any preference parties at all so those poor darlings won't have to endure another moment of being forced to attend their parties?

[carnation]

Literally no one. And no one showed up the next year or the next either. I knew one of the sisters and she told me, plus I heard stories about it for years.

I think it hurt them worse than the rushees who had to go to the parties because they put out all that effort for nothing and then had to stand out there waiting for a new member class who never came. If the PNMs hadn't been made to attend all prefs, the chapter might have had some advance warning because in the south, there are many girls who are too nice to show their displeasure by crying or gritting their teeth at the parties. They just go back to the computer and SIP.

[KDCat]

Originally Posted by carnation

Literally no one. And no one showed up the next year or the next either. I knew one of the sisters and she told me, plus I heard stories about it for years.

I think it hurt them worse than the rushees who had to go to the parties because they put out all that effort for nothing and then had to stand out there waiting for a new member class who never came. If the PNMs hadn't been made to attend all prefs, the chapter might have had some advance warning because in the south, there are many girls who are too nice to show their displeasure by crying or gritting their teeth at the parties. They just go back to the computer and SIP.

That's awful!

I went to a small school which only had 3 sororities (Missouri S&T), but they used to take a middle ground on this. You had to attend all parties up until pref, but you could decline any pref invitation you received. You could attend pref at all 3 if you were invited to all 3 or you could attend pref at just one, even if you were invited to all three. We were given a schedule to tell us what time to be at each house. IRC, we met a Rho Chi near the house and went in as a group.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by carnation

Literally no one. And no one showed up the next year or the next either. I knew one of the sisters and she told me, plus I heard stories about it for years.

I think it hurt them worse than the rushees who had to go to the parties because they put out all that effort for nothing and then had to stand out there waiting for a new member class who never came. If the PNMs hadn't been made to attend all prefs, the chapter might have had some advance warning because in the south, there are many girls who are too nice to show their displeasure by crying or gritting their teeth at the parties. They just go back to the computer and SIP.

I don't see how it would be any better if nobody showed up for their pref party.

Really, it does not kill a young woman to go somewhere, eat some mini cupcakes and drink spritzer water, and make small talk for an hour before/after going to the pref party at the chapter they really want. I don't think that women should be forced to list a chapter she doesn't want on her bid card, but going to pref, especially when you are dressed up and all that anyway, is simply the polite thing to do.

[chi-o_cat]

Originally Posted by carnation

I remember the story of one group that had 2 full pref parties on Pref Night (the school required that PNMs go to all prefs they were invited to or be dismissed from recruitment) but no one ran to them on Bid Day. Talk about depressing, to say the least.

My recruitment story in a nutshell: As a freshman, I had absolutely no interest in going Greek. FR was held in the fall. Over the summer, I suddenly changed my mind and decided to go through it just to see what would happen. I did have one friend who had planned to rush as sophomore all along, but since I didn’t decide until the summer, I gave up any advantage that a sophomore might have, such as being able to “do my homework” about the chapters, make friends with current members, etc. Nobody in my family had ever joined a fraternity or sorority, and I was basically clueless about the whole process, but was curious about what it would be like. I think our campus, at that time had 16 chapters. For round two, I was invited back to 4 or 5 houses, for round 3 I was invited to 2, and then preffed at one house, which was where I got a bid from (and was very excited about joining). This was also the smallest house on campus, and it closed at the end of that school year, and all of us went alum at that point. (okay, pretty big nutshell, I guess)

I heard a rumor that my sorority only received one member through formal recruitment. And since I went through formal recruitment, if that rumor was true, the one member would be me. Now, because I was so clueless about how rush worked, or what bid day was “supposed” to look like, and because 20+ years later my memories of that time aren’t exactly crystal clear, I still wonder whether that was true. I do remember meeting up with a Chi Omega sister (or maybe more than one) and going to the house after I got my bid. Where there other pledges with me? I can’t remember. There were definitely other pledges at the house that day, so I guess they could have been snap bids. We did eventually recruit additional pledges through COB, and I think had a pledge class of 12 or 14. Of course I think quota was probably somewhere in the 30-40 range, so our class was not enough to bring us up to a level playing field.

I am still in touch with some of my sisters on Facebook. I’m really tempted to ask if that rumor was true. Maybe nobody even remembers anymore. I’m not sure why it still sticks in my mind so much.

[Titchou]

What happens in that case is that the PNM just suicides and then it's a roll of the dice. If they made the list for the other group, they are in. If they didn't, well, there you go. I guess they felt it was better to be in no group at all....

[DeltaBetaBaby]

I disagree. Nobody wanting to join your chapter is heartbreaking, whether it means that you have empty prefs or that you don't make quota. When women don't have to go to prefs, though, women who do like your chapter look around and see that the room is empty, and second-guess themselves.

[carnation]

I don't know. The first year it happened, I saw all the photos that the campus bid day photographer took before the new members ran to their sororities. Like the rest of the groups, they were sitting there perkily in lawn chairs, holding up T's for the expected new class and posing with alums and each other. (How do you play off something awful like that?) The same thing happened the second year.

The third year right before the new members ran out, the Greek advisor made an announcement over the PA system that AB wouldn't be down in the field for Bid Day. Not sure why because it really highlighted what happened.

[alexandra92]

At my school you can go to up to 3 prefs. You don't have to, but if you're invited to more then three and only go to two and the other groups find out about it, it is considered very rude and arrogant and does not look well on the PNM.

If you suicide you cannot go into COB.

[KSUViolet06]

^^^^If your Panhellenic is forbidding girls to COR because they suicided/SIPed, they are not following policy.

The only thing that SIPing makes you ineligible for is a snap bid during bid matching.

You are not ineligible to COR if you suicide and don't get a bid.

More NPC savvy peeps may correct me if I am wrong.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

^^^^If your Panhellenic is forbidding girls to COR because they suicided/SIPed, they are not following policy.

The only thing that SIPing makes you ineligible for is a snap bid during bid matching.

You are not ineligible to COR if you suicide and don't get a bid.

More NPC savvy peeps may correct me if I am wrong.

A woman who SIP's is eligible for snap bidding and COR. She is only ineligible to be a quota addition.

[AZ-AlphaXi]

^^^^ KSUViolet

the only thing that SAP makes you ineligible for is to be a quota addition. Here's the bit from the MOI

4. If Preferential Bidding is used, women who indicate an Intentional
Single Preference and do not receive an invitation to membership are
eligible for Snap Bidding and Continuous Open Bidding, but are not
eligible for Quota Addition.
Resolved (1995), That a Potential New Member who withdraws from
the Fully Structured Recruitment process before the signing of her
membership acceptance shall be eligible for Snap Bidding and
Continuous Open Bidding.