From Pref Night to Bid Day: What happens?

[IndianaSigKap]

Before RFM, WRC and even ARC (average recruiting chapters) were sitting ducks. My granddaughter (you call them littles, we called them daughters) was a recruitment counselor and called me in tears after bids were handed out. We had about 4 chapters on our campus who were notorious for over inviting for pref. By over inviting I mean that their quota was 30 and they would invite 300 to pref because they wanted to have full parties. Three girls in her rush group went to preference at two of the four. She was lucky to only have three, some of her colleagues had as many as 7 or 8. Snap bids were very common. We had a list of girls who came to us the round before pref but did not match and usually got anywhere from 3-10 of those women before Bid Day even began.

I wish RFM had come along about 5 years earlier. My campus would look very different. I really believe that at least two of the four chapters who left in the 90s would have survived with RFM.

[TriDeltaSallie]

I also believe that if RFM had been available in the late 80's/early 90's, the Greek system at Michigan State would look very different. Tri Delta, AGD, Phi Mu and Alpha Xi Delta all left campus within a few years of each other.

Even though I was chapter president, I honestly don't remember much about the invite lists, percentages and all that (except how crushing it was to get our bid lists). I just know that no matter how hard we worked, we were doomed. Our chapter house was also extremely uncompetitive. We were on sorority row, but had the most unappealing house by far. I don't know what the alums were thinking when they built it.

We were told over and over again by national workers that we could overcome the hindrance of the house, but I do not believe that was possible. Not when you have six other gorgeous houses on the same two blocks (and others elsewhere) and yours is nothing like the rest. Zeta was directly across the street from us and they put a lot of money into their physical structure. They did survive and now my understanding is they are doing pretty well.

I remember going to Purdue for Leadership School and seeing the huge, gorgeous brand new DDD house there and feeling absolutely sick that Tri Delta built that house for them and we could do nothing.

And then there was the decision to bring on AOPi when there were multiple chapters not making quota each fall.

And then there were the hostile tiers where people would cross the street rather than speak to you.

And then there's the university administration that really isn't supportive of the Greek system at all.

Yeah, it's really a wonder that system survives at all, to be perfectly honest.