Snap bids

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

These answers explain why you wouldn't really know how it worked unless you actually did bid matching or were the one who extended the snap bid. Thank you for explaining.

But in almost all of these examples, it seem like the only way that a girl might get a snap bid from a chapter that cut her would be in she dropped out of rush (which makes sense because if she continued, she would probably have matched with someone else).

Those of you who did snap bidding as advisers or bid matching teams, can you think of cases in which you gave a snap bid to a girl who you cut? (Not to be too darkly cynical, but isn't this where the stories about "computer glitches" usually have their origins?)

Hahaha, there is NO SUCH THING as a computer glitch...only user error.

Without getting too much into MS, many snap bids at Illinois were women who dropped out of rush. Keep in mind that schools with tons of chapters have GRUELING schedules, so there are plenty of women who drop out for reasons other than "didn't like invites".

Another type of snap bid went to women who did not participate in formal recruitment. Think of this as early COB, but if you could get the girl to sign a card on bid day and join the NM class, she would then be in the mix with everyone else, and she would be bound to your chapter for one year. The key here is that the girl would have to have been contacted after the FR deadline.

And yes, plenty of chapter abuse the privelege if they know they will be under total even if they make quota.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Another type of snap bid went to women who did not participate in formal recruitment. Think of this as early COB, but if you could get the girl to sign a card on bid day and join the NM class, she would then be in the mix with everyone else, and she would be bound to your chapter for one year. The key here is that the girl would have to have been contacted after the FR deadline.

And yes, plenty of chapter abuse the privelege if they know they will be under total even if they make quota.

Wow. I had never even thought of this! It it allowed everywhere? It seems like it would be really helpful for chapters that appeal to and are willing to make contact with girls who would never consider going through formal rush. I always assumed you'd have to wait until after formal rush was completely over and you were having COB events. Do these kind of snap bid count against the fall rush quota?

[UGAalum94]

Is that above type of snap bid allowed at UGA?

[Drolefille]

That wasn't considered a "snap bid" at our school. It was a COB. But the girls were called to show up on bid day so that no one would really know the difference. Occasionally we'd do this with someone we wanted to bid the previous semester but didn't get a chance before it was too late in the year.

[UGAalum94]

It just seems like an amazing opportunity to get a lot of girls who would never do formal rush at a time of the year when it would be best for everyone to do it if most of your campus doesn't do COB or spring rush.

Did it count against your quota for the fall or just against chapter total? Could you do it if your graduating senior dropped you below total over the summer or only if you were below chapter total with all the senior members?

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Another type of snap bid went to women who did not participate in formal recruitment. Think of this as early COB, but if you could get the girl to sign a card on bid day and join the NM class, she would then be in the mix with everyone else, and she would be bound to your chapter for one year. The key here is that the girl would have to have been contacted after the FR deadline.

And yes, plenty of chapter abuse the privelege if they know they will be under total even if they make quota.

Correct me if I misunderstand how this works, but if a chapter is under campus total (regardless if they make quota or not), NPC rules allows them to bid until they make total. So the sooner a chapter can bid a PNM, the less time (and numbers) the chapter needs to COB during the rest of the semester to reach total. That doesn't sound like an abuse at all. Snap bidding when you aren't at total early on seems like smart membership recruitment to me.

[UGAalum94]

It might be abused if a chapter made contact with people in ways that were contrary to the deadlines.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by TSteven

Correct me if I misunderstand how this works, but if a chapter is under campus total (regardless if they make quota or not), NPC rules allows them to bid until they make total. So the sooner a chapter can bid a PNM, the less time (and numbers) the chapter needs to COB during the rest of the semester to reach total. That doesn't sound like an abuse at all. Snap bidding when you aren't at total early on seems like smart membership recruitment to me.

Yes, finding women who did not participate in FR and asking them to join is a good thing. Encouraging women in FR to drop out because you are promising them a bid is not.

And yes, it is more of a COB than a snap bid, except that they are there on bid day and nobody in the pledge class ever has to know they didn't rush.

[UGAalum94]

Oooh, I hadn't even thought of that abuse: using it as a way to get more girls out of fall rush than quota. I can see how that could get really bad, but on the other hand, my extremely limited experience is that groups that know they are going to be below chapter total even after formal rush aren't typically the groups that people would drop out for, but it certainly could happen every once and a while.

At campuses where this type of COB/Snap bid happens, can you talk to girls about this option in the spring, wait until after the fall rush deadline and then offer the bids? Or are you not allowed to even mention the possibility to a girl until after the fall recruitment deadline?

(I'm not thinking of talking to high school freshmen, I'm talking about girls who will be sophomores or juniors.)

[dgdramadawg]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

Oooh, I hadn't even thought of that abuse: using it as a way to get more girls out of fall rush than quota. I can see how that could get really bad, but on the other hand, my extremely limited experience is that groups that know they are going to be below chapter total even after formal rush aren't typically the groups that people would drop out for, but it certainly could happen every once and a while.

My mom's sorority on her campus actually put girls low on their bid list when they knew the girls would suicide so that when they hit quota (without going too far down the list) they could snap bid the girls who suicided to fill to total. This seems like another way to abuse snap bids to get more than quota out of fall rush... and what a terrible time for the girls who had to get the mismatch phone call and then wait for a snap bid! My mom's number one advice to me going through was not to tell my house I was suiciding just in case they were planning to do the same thing!

Like notmanhattan said, a lot of houses at UGA have to snap bid at least a couple girls (whether it's to get quota or to fill to total) and I think the way houses choose who they snap is as different as Membership Selection! I knew a girl who got a call with a snap bid her freshman year from a house she cut after round one! I would think most houses try to offer bids to girls who visited during round three or prefs, but maybe other houses are willing to offer them to girls who they liked early on even though those girls did not keep them on their party lists. I'm sure it always depends on the girl, the circumstances of who cut who and why, and the number of snaps the chapter needs to extend to meet their goal.

[FuzzieAlum]

A couple of folks have asked what happens if two groups are willing to snap bid the same girl. On our campus snap bids were generally phone calls from the Greek life office. (We also called offering bids to girls, usually those who dropped out, in the day or two after pref, snaps, but I guess they weren't truly.) I do know one girl who got a call from Greek life saying that ABC and DEF were offering her bids; which one would she prefer?

Which seems odd to me ... it's a little psychologically different than having to rank the groups in your mind before you know how much they want you, which is how formal usually works.

[SWTXBelle]

Well, it makes sense in that you allow the PNM to make the choice - so it is more like accepting/decling invitations to pref than filling out your bid card.

[dgdramadawg]

Originally Posted by FuzzieAlum

I do know one girl who got a call from Greek life saying that ABC and DEF were offering her bids; which one would she prefer?

I wish UGA would do this... with so many houses potentially snapping it would be hard to say yes to DEF when you're really hoping to hear from ABC!

[AchtungBaby80]

Originally Posted by FuzzieAlum

On our campus snap bids were generally phone calls from the Greek life office. (We also called offering bids to girls, usually those who dropped out, in the day or two after pref, snaps, but I guess they weren't truly.)

I was wondering about that. I'm not completely sure how snap bidding worked where I went to college, but I always assumed it was done via a phone call from the Greek Life office after the sororities had decided whom they wanted to snap. I think a few people have mentioned snap bidding being done by each individual chapter, i.e. the chapter itself would call the girl to offer her a snap bid, in which case she could theoretically receive multiple calls. But I wonder, does she have to give an answer right away if that's how her campus does it? What if, say, DEF calls her to offer a snap bid and she'd be willing to take it if ABC (her first choice) doesn't offer her one? It would suck if she said yes, thinking that a bid to DEF is preferable to no bid at all, and then ABC called.

[texas*princess]

would it be safe to say that different schools handle snaps differently?

my personal participation in FR was limited to decorating, singing, chatting & preffing pnms. i never did anything like bid matching or never saw that side of the recruitment process so i can't say how it was done at my school, but it sounds like different schools do things differently on these past few pages?