Snap bids

[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.

[dgdramadawg]

Originally Posted by AchtungBaby80

What if, say, DEF calls her to offer a snap bid and she'd be willing to take it [i[if[/i] 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.

Well, she hasn't signed anything with DEF yet... so I guess some girls might not see that "yes" as binding.

[AchtungBaby80]

Originally Posted by dgdramadawg

Well, she hasn't signed anything with DEF yet... so I guess some girls might not see that "yes" as binding.

Well, yeah...but wouldn't that seem kind of...rude? I don't know. It just seems like a catch-22--if she says, "Can I think about it?" then DEF will probably guess that she's hoping for another bid, but if she accepts DEF and then ditches them for ABC, I can see some hurt feelings.

There was a girl in my pledge class whom everyone said was a snap bid. I always wanted to ask her about it because I was curious as to how the whole thing worked, but I was too afraid because I didn't want to bring it up if it was something she didn't want to talk about.

[gphiangel624]

Originally Posted by AchtungBaby80

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 [i[if[/i] 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.

This is why all chapters should submit a potential snap bid list to the Greek Life office so that, prior or during regular bid distribution, calls can be made to those women who are being offered snap bids. One purpose of snap bidding is to offer bids prior to the COB time frame so that there is no difference seen or known between the members in the chapter (new and active).

I've always felt it best (and the advisors on my campus have always agreed) that all snap bids lists are given to the GA, then he/she makes the call; so if ABC and DEF are both offering a bid to a PNM, she gets to make the choice. It doesn't happen often on my campus that more than one chapter offers a snap bid, but it prevents the scenario where ABC calls a PNM, she takes the bid, the DEF calls later.

[Drolefille]

All of our actual snaps were done by the disaffiliated Panhel/ Greek Life people. Then if we had any other bids we wanted to offer we did that ourselves and they were technically CR bids.

I think.

Like texas*princess said, a flow chart would make it much simpler.

[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?

[pialpha92]

I think a lot of the confusion comes down to what each campus/chapter called snap bids.

The official snap bids are the ones that Panhellenic calls. If a PNM doesn't match with those on their bid card, but another chapter that is not at quota is offering a bid, then the PNM gets a call from Panhellenic offering a bid to ABC instead. Some accept and some don't, but the chapters are none the wiser unless the PNM brings it up later. Generally those would be people the chapter already had in one way or another on a bid list given to Panhellenic.

If bids were handed out at 4pm and chapters were allowed to start making calls at 4:01pm to offer bids, those were technically open rush bids. Sometimes they would be those unmatched at the end of bid matching and sometimes they would be someone the chapter already knew who was unable to go through formal recruitment. However, I remember that we always referred to the phone calls the chapter made as 'snap bids'.

They technically weren't really snap bids, but we always called them that.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by dgdramadawg

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!

Yes, this is an abuse. This is the type of thing that hurts the smaller chapters, and should be totally against the rules, IMO.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

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.)

In most cases, I think you would just try to get those girls to pledge in the spring.