"Forced" prefs?

[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.

[AOT767]

Originally Posted by KDCat

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.

I'm a recently initiated member of this chapter, and from what I gather, this has been changed. Don't take my word as 100%, because although our Rho Chi's were wonderful ladies, I felt extremely uninformed during the recruitment process. But from hearing the older ladies talk, it seems that last year was the final year you were allowed to turn down invitations from the chapters for pref, and this year they required you to go to every party on your list. I feel like we were told that we had to attend all parties during the whole process or we would be ineligible for a bid. Luckily for me, I only preffed at my favorite chapter so this wasn't a problem for me, but I did notice many girls during my pref party who clearly didn't want to be there but were still trying to be polite about it.


Carnation, your story sounds awful and I feel for those poor girls. It would be so heartbreaking to experience something like that! I would have no idea what to do in a situation like that, I hope those ladies played it off as gracefully as possible and still enjoyed their time as collegians.

[KDCat]

Originally Posted by AOT767

I'm a recently initiated member of this chapter, and from what I gather, this has been changed. Don't take my word as 100%, because although our Rho Chi's were wonderful ladies, I felt extremely uninformed during the recruitment process. But from hearing the older ladies talk, it seems that last year was the final year you were allowed to turn down invitations from the chapters for pref, and this year they required you to go to every party on your list. I feel like we were told that we had to attend all parties during the whole process or we would be ineligible for a bid. Luckily for me, I only preffed at my favorite chapter so this wasn't a problem for me, but I did notice many girls during my pref party who clearly didn't want to be there but were still trying to be polite about it.

Congrats on initiation! So are they doing 3 pref parties now or 2?

(BTW, EA KD was my first choice, too.)

[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.

[carnation]

I think that they were hurt worse by the full pref parties because some of the girls had indeed put them on the bid card and the chapter had a list of pledges that they were supposed to get and then no one showed up. The PNMs must have looked at their bids and left.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by carnation

I think that they were hurt worse by the full pref parties because some of the girls had indeed put them on the bid card and the chapter had a list of pledges that they were supposed to get and then no one showed up. The PNMs must have looked at their bids and left.

Did they not have people in the pipeline to give open bids to? Sophomore or junior friends of the chapter? Any chapter that is struggling that doesn't do their homework before rush and have those people in mind is shooting themselves in the foot. I think we had one semester where we didn't match anyone in formal, but we managed to bid up to a comparable sized pledge class that same night because we did those things. No one outside Panhel had any clue.

[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.