bid day celebration!

[honeychile]

Originally posted by LionTamer

What was cruel is that they made a point of never delivering roommates' bids at the same time, so if Lisa and Rindy were both rushing, XYZ would come by with Lisa's bid and keep going, even if Rindy was on their pick-up list as well. Rindy didn't know if that meant another group would be coming for her, or if XYZ would be back. If there were 3 girls on the same floor, same deal. You'd see ABC sorority coming into your dorm (your third choice) and your heart would sink. Or you'd see your first choice, and they'd come for a neighbor and keep going. Very terrifying!

Oh, that IS cruel!!! I really don't like to see that type of thing happening.

[erica812]

Originally posted by honeychile
Oh, that IS cruel!!! I really don't like to see that type of thing happening.

But the last part of the story is SO heartwarming! I just love happy tears

Erica

[gphiangel624]

We do bid day just about the same way as anyone else. We have a huge lawn by our belltower and all the sororities get balloon arches, their letters (often painted to some sort of theme-Alpha Chis were really cute last year and had a type of American flag painted across their letters), and the guys usually will carry a bunch of couches onto campus surrounding the whole area to watch. The new members get their bids early in the afternoon and their Panhellenic initiation is done right before the actual bid day ceremony at 4pm. Then they all go up on this little hill at the edge of the lawn and run according to groups. The new members usually get tackled by the chapter members and it can be really sad when two sororities that a particular girl preffed are right next to each other. The chapter members rarely know who signed their bids until that moment, so it's extremely exciting.

The best part is when the recruitment counselors reveal themselves. Since all the chapters have a different bid day shirt, the RCs get them beforehand and wear them under a sweatshirt. After the new members have all run down the hill, the RCs and Panhellenic officers are introduced to the entire group (there are so many people who watch) and then they tear off the shirts and run to their chapters. I got tackled and a little injured when I was a RC.

After bid day, most chapters do their own thing- of course pictures and stuff, too. My chapter usually goes to an alums house for dinner and ritual and so the girls can all get to know each other. We try to refrain from the fraternity parties since the girls are still new and we don't want to give them a terrible impression or anything on their first night in the chapter.

Typically, all the chapters go to the fraternity theme nights during their rush the next weekend. My chapter always dresses alike- black bottoms, white top, and we look NICE when we go to the theme parties. We always go to all of them, too, unless the guys don't want girls there (which is rare). It's a lot of fun and I'm going to miss it this year, even though Bid Day might be at MY HOUSE!!!

[polarpi]

All the PNM's have to report to the Union Great Hall at a certain time (I think the year I went through we had to be there at 4:30) and we're given an envelope with our bid inside, but we take it into the huge room and have to stand on top of the envelope ( ) and wait until after we watch a video with all the sororities on campus and a "Go Greek" video. Then the Greek advisor makes a speech, then the Panhellenic VP of Recruitment makes a speech, and then the Rho Chis are revealed (they do the switching of letters at our university, too, but as an upperclassman, I knew that most of them were in a different sorority than they "reaffiliated" with ) After that, we pick up our envelopes, and then are permitted to open them and find out where we received a bid to.

The year I joined, my chapter didn't have a Rho Chi, so one of the Delta members came to the Great Hall to meet all the NM's. We got together with her, and she taught us a few cheers to sing on the way to the CR.

All the other chapters leave the Great Hall and go back to their CR's, but some of the sororities meet elsewhere around campus and then go out to celebrate elsewhere.

Our bid day we went to our chapter room, took pictures, ate food, and played some "getting to know you" games, and then the NM's had their first Alpha Education session. We did our Alpha ceremony the next night.

[White_Chocolate]

the fraternities throw a big party on bid nite
sigma kappa and phi sig kind of took over this year
and we commanded the dance floor
we both got some great girls

[33girl]

LionTamer,

We did pledge pick-up the same way, only if we bid 2 roommates or girls on the same floor, we got them all at once. We were far too lazy to make 2 trips. The main rule was at 6:00, when the sororities started coming around, if you knew you were getting picked up, you went in your room and kept the door closed until someone knocked - NO exceptions!!

If you went through rush and hadn't gotten a bid, you got a phone call early enough so you could get out of the dorm or go home for the weekend and not have to sit through it. I know that there must have been times when the girl opened her door to something other than her first choice and had the "oh crap" look on her face - but I still think it was a lot better than doing it all out in the open at the student center or a yard in the middle of campus. The nice part was being able to share that moment with your dorm friends who had helped you get through the week.

The memories are flooding back as I write this - I feel like it all just happened an hour ago.

[ilovemyglo]

The only way to find out what we do is to pledge AGD!

LOL! actually it varies from year to year!

[AAgammagirl]

ok, so, this "run down the hill" towards your sorority thing.....
in some ways i think it would be so exciting, but what about if there's a house (or several) that got WAY below quota, and all the new members are running to all the sororities around them and then only a few go to their house.
i think that would be heartwrenching, not only for the new members but the actives as well. it would be very hard on chapter morale.
this has happened for a number of years at a college campus in 1 of the eastern states. unfortunately there are a few chapters there that are experiencing this. i have wondered why the panhellenic council has not changed their bid day events until the campus stabilizes/equalizes??
any thoughts anyone??
(btw, at Univ. of Toronto, Bid day events are pretty tame, just a pizza party a few hours after bid pick up and not everyone attends. but the new members usually go to their new sorority in the evening for a get together of some kind).

[gphiangel624]

Originally posted by AAgammagirl
ok, so, this "run down the hill" towards your sorority thing.....
in some ways i think it would be so exciting, but what about if there's a house (or several) that got WAY below quota, and all the new members are running to all the sororities around them and then only a few go to their house.
i think that would be heartwrenching, not only for the new members but the actives as well. it would be very hard on chapter morale.

Actually, this is sometimes the case at my school. In past years, there has been one chapter who consistently gets lower numbers during formal recruitment, but they end up pulling up numbers through COB and are actually very close to total (almost all 6 chapters are at or near total) by the end of Fall. As far as I know, they've never been upset or anything about the bid day process because they do get a good number of girls, and there are usually like 20-30 girls running at once so it's not like all eyes are on them. I don't think the problem is that they aren't good at rushing because they really are and they have a great chapter. I think the problem is that they don't follow release figures at all, which hurts their numbers in the end. Hopefully, things will change soon.

[LionTamer]

The nice part was being able to share that moment with your dorm friends who had helped you get through the week.

So true. And I think it helps Panhel recruiting - the freshmen see the sororities delivering the bids, and it looks like something they might want to be part of next year (since most people rushed as sophomores anyway).

Also, everyone decorated the doors of the pledges' rooms, and big sisters went sort of berserk decorating your room through the whole finding-out-who-your-big-sister-is process). More PR.

But I'm with honeychile - they hope they've changed things so they pick up roommates together, and get everyone who lives on the same floor at the same time

[alsparky]

When I was in school, for informal recruitment, women would receive their bids in a sealed envelope in their mailbox, so it was their choice where to open them. I believe they also did this for Formal recruitment, though I could be wrong.

In any event, women would gather in the lobby of a very historic building on campus and gather into groups, Rho Chis would reveal themselves, then one group at a time, the women would link arms and march down the hill to the Avenue that house all 4 of the sororities, starting with the group farthest down the street. You would see these lines of women marching down the street, Rho Chis on either end, smiling widely in their letters. All the groups would cheer and chant as everyone went by. And when your group came by, you ran into the street and showered the New Members with hugs, flowers, balloons, etc. Then we would go into our houses, do introductions, and EVERYONE from EVERY HOUSE would march up to the Cafeteria, and the sororities took over the left side of the Cafe. (Apparently they used to sing and chant in there too, but they had to stop that because too many PNMs who did get bids left the Cafe in tears!)

Then each Sorority would go back to their house and do some sort of activity with the NMs. We went Roller Skating every year!! I get very nostalgic for rollerskating every September and January!!

Like you said, AAgammagirl, it was hard to see other chapters have many more girls walk down the street, then see only 4 or 5 coming to us (Chapter totals were 50, and quota was usually around 10).

Zeta seemed to take a lot of women involved in music, so often, they had practice at the time that we had Bid Day. And that made our numbers look smaller. Even knowing that there were more girls who weren't there made it hard to watch.

[astroAPhi]

For bid day, the girls can pick up their bids starting at noon at the Student Union Building. All the sororities have a table outside and the new members come down to the plaza and walk towards the sorority they got a bid from an accept. It's so incredibly tense because we don't know which girls we got either. And then everyone screams and takes pictures, and we give girls their bid day bags, complete with a Bid Day shirt like we're all wearing, a letter from the NM Ed., a silver and bordeaux ribbon, and little A Phi goodies, like candles and picture frames and pin cushions. The Panhellenic ceremony is at 5-ish and the RCs reveal themselves and then we took the girls to dinner at our house. After that, we all went party-hopping because it was 12:01 parties for all of the fraternities. Bid Day is so much fun for all the girls and the sisters!

[PiPhiERDoc]

Back in the day....(god, why does that make me feel so OLD???)
We (the PMN's) met in the biggest auditorium on campus, and the Rho Chi's passed out the bids, which were in an envelope and we all had to sit on them while the rho chi's did their revealing, ect. After what felt like an eternity, we were finally able to open them
-- everyone was screaming, crying, you name it. But it was kind of hard to be deliriously happy while the girl next to you was bawling her eyes out because she didn't get the chapter she wanted.
All of the chapters used to meet in the circular driveway in the middle of campus outside of the building where all of the PMN's were getting their bids, with balloons/shirts/signs/ect, cheering and singing. Each pledge class would then run out with their rho chi to meet their new sisters. It was neat to get to see who was in what pledge class. However...it was also really hard to see girls who had come to your preference running to a different group crying and clearly VERY upset about their bid. Made you feel really awful. And having to see very small pledge classes coming out the door to some chapters was also hard.
Fastforward to the present...
Panhellenic now has the rho chi's pass out the bids to each small rush group which are in separate classrooms, so they don't have a huge audience of PMN's to open their bids in front of. After that they go to panhellenic initiation and rho chi revealing, so girls who are having a hard time can spend some extra time with their rho chi in their room if they need to. They then send each pledge class to a classroom where they meet the chapter president and new member educator. They also stagger when each sorority comes to pick up their pledge class, so they are looking out the window and see the sorority marching toward the building with huge signs, letters, balloons, singing and chanting their love for their new members!!!
The new members then come running out where the girls who pref'ed them meet them with balloons, tee-shirts, and other gifts, and they go back to the houses for bid day pictures and activities.

All in all, I think the "new way" is probably kinder and gentler on everyone, which takes a lot for me to admit because I'm kind of a grump in my love for the "old school" RUSH! (note, I did call it rush and not recruitment.... but at least I referred to them as PMN's and not RUSHEEs -- that's progress, right????)