Tossing Out Bids

[HQWest]

This is getting common around here. I believe it is the result of the computer system where girls are encouraged to maximize their options. Girls who would have "suicided" one house really only want that one house after prefs, but list all of their choices in the hopes that if they aren't at the top of the list they will get a bid by quota addition. Then, when they don't get what they want when the bids are passed out, they refuse their bid.

Some of it is because of preconceived notions, tent talk, chapters where they had a friend or a legacy and assumed they had an in, some they just had to have a bid.

(As an aside, it is just as upsetting to see legacy's mom standing next to her on bid day and saying, "just take it. take it. They are a great group of girls, too." and PNM sobbing and tossing it away, as legacy mom pitching a fit because PNM didn't get a bid to her legacy.)

[UGAalum94]

What factors cause quota to be set lower, HQWest? I'm not familiar with this aspect.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by HQWest

OK - old school way was to divide the number of ladies who signed up for recruitment by the number of chapters to set quota, but then a lot of girls drop out of recruitment and maybe only a third of chapters get quota. (But then they were ladies about it, and some chapters were just bigger than others.)

When I went through it was number of girls who went to prefs by the number of chapters to set quota, then just one or two chapters don't get quota. In a strong campus system, the smaller chapters each COB a handful of girls (usually upperclassmen), problem solved. If one or two chapters end up with a lot of empty spots though, they can spend forever trying to COB and their problems snowball.

So to try to make it more fair, they now have a computer system that after all of the pref cards are turned in, it comes up with a range of numbers - if quota is 30 then 10 of 15 chapters get quota but if it is 28 then 12 of 15 get quota, but if it is 25 then everyone gets quota, for example. Panhellenic decides (before finding out which chapters would not get quota) where to set quota before passing out the bid lists. The girls who would get "cross-cut" are then made quota additions - so the smaller chapters would get quota +, and everyone can go home happy because everyone made quota, right? The trouble is that girls that do not get their first choice are more likely to drop - so smaller chapters have to deal with more drama. It helps the smallest chapters some, but causes headaches for the middle chapters.

I'm just thinking that it may actually be better to set quota and have a couple chapters miss quota by 2 or 3 than to set it either high, and have a couple chapters that need a lot of COB or too low and have chapters that are getting a larger portion of their pledge class have it second choice.

I didn't realize that quota was ever based on a share of whoever signed up rather than who preffed.

I don't follow too many campuses, but since I've been paying attention, I haven't seen quota size decline that much over the years relative to the pool in recruitment generally. I mention that to note, that yes, if quota on a certain campus used to be 80 and now it's 60 and the size of the PNM pool is the same, then, I'd have to think that meant more girls used to get their top choice. But if quota has been in about the same range for decades or has been increasing, as it seems to be at the campuses I follow, then it's hard to see how the system is decreasing the number of girls who get bids to their top choices.

I tend to think the release figure and quota range issues just shift when PNMs might receive disappointing news. Now they get dropped by top chapters earlier. But now rather than getting cross cut and getting snapped or COB, they get added to a regular bid list of a house they preffed, but they may get added to a group that wasn't their top choice.

I think the sort of bummer for the chapters is that while their recruitment numbers are better, member retention still isn't perfect. But, and I've got no data to support this really, my instincts tell me that retention is no worse than it used to be at the chapters that snapped and COBed. I could be wrong about this, and it could be that the experience of getting dropped completely made a girl more grateful for a snap or COB bid to XYZ than she is being a made a XYZ QA without the conscious awareness that she didn't make the cut at her other choices, even though the panhellenic system of bid matching tried hard to put her there.

The one thing that I'd stress to PNMs is that there's really no way to game the system to get your top choice. Only maximize your options if you sincerely would be happy in your last choice on the bid card. From a Greek Life official perspective any bid is the same positive outcome, but from a PNM perspective, it is not.

ETA: Carnation, isn't the only penalty for SIPing not being eligible for QA? If you don't list a chapter on your bid card, you don't face penalties for not accepting a bid, correct?

In the real world, what are the chances that a girl's first choice is the chapter that she'd get QAed to when she wouldn't have matched there by regular bid matching? Isn't it tiny unless her taste run counter to the PNM pool generally?

EATA: I guess I should clarify that I'm thinking of cases in which a girl is preffing at least one group that she regards as being significantly less desirable than the rest. If she's preffing the three groups regarded as the most desirable on campus, then I'd guess her chances of being QA are equal at each. But when there's a mix of chapter popularity on her bid card, isn't she most likely to end up, if she is a QA, at one of the less popular chapters?

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by HQWest

This happens quite a lot around here. Especially when we have a couple of chapters with huge amounts of legacies going through, she might pref them as a legacy, but they have more legacies than spots.

But what about the other chapters that she preffed? She'd have to not match to them through regular matching too, right? That seems odd.

When you say 25% drop before bid day and half don't see it through to graduation, do you mean at certain chapters or campus wide? If it's campus wide, that seems like something way beyond what any new quota system could fix.

[crescent&pearls]

Why is this such a big source of supposed "misunderstanding" on the part of anyone? A PNM can potentially get a bid from ANY chapter she lists on her preference card. If you'd rather not be in a sorority that potentially have to claim yourself as a NM of Alpha Beta, then don't list them on the pref card. And if you don't get your fave or your second fave, well that's too bad. Buck up and deal. You takes your chances. That's how it works. Simple.

I understand your theory HQWest but I don't think that's really rooted in fact. Even though the majority of PNMs do get a bid from the group they listed as their first preference, there have always been and will always be PNMs that will not get a bid from their first choice. A smaller number will not be placed with their second choice. And all groups, even the most "popular" on any given campus, have NMs who don't initiate for a variety of reasons- financial, time, lack of support from their family or boyfriend, a decision to transfer schools, get involved in other activities or they decide it's just not for them for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by HQWest

(As an aside, it is just as upsetting to see legacy's mom standing next to her on bid day and saying, "just take it. take it. They are a great group of girls, too." and PNM sobbing and tossing it away, as legacy mom pitching a fit because PNM didn't get a bid to her legacy.)

Disagree. If you're such a twit that you wouldn't even give the group a chance, you don't deserve to be a sorority member. If my legacy behaved that way, I'd be mortified. While everyone can understand the twinge of disappointment that your daughter did not join your sorority, if you didn't prepare yourself and her for that possibility (heck maybe probability considering the odds) before she signed up for recruitment you did not do yourself or your daughter due diligence.

[OneHeartOneWay]

Originally Posted by HQWest

Girls who would have "suicided" one house really only want that one house after prefs, but list all of their choices in the hopes that if they aren't at the top of the list they will get a bid by quota addition.

This. 100%.

While there still lots of naive PNMs out there, there are those who read these boards, have friends active in Greek Life, have moms who volunteer, etc. They know how the system works, and they know what game to play. I actually think this will continue to get worse as it becomes more and more common knowledge how quota additions work.