NPC Rush - Can something be done to reduce/eradicate the number of "bidless" rushees?

[lovelyone576]

Well, reading all of this worries me. I am a current high school senior and I plan to rush at U of AL next fall. I have thought about this over and over and it is beginning to stress me out...I would be happy to know that just one house wanted me, and I can't make sense of the women that turn down bids. It is difficult to describe, but the aspect of Greek life is so intriguing to me. I look forward to the NPC rush, the only down side will be waiting to find out about bids. If there is a way to increase my chances I would be glad to hear. Because if there are bidless rushees at IU then there may very well be some at UA! Thanks a bunch.

[CutiePie2000]

Thank you to:
[b] ZTAngel[b/],[b] SoCalGirl[b/] and
[b]coffeemug[b/] for your answers! I have learned such a tremendous amount about the NPC Rush process on this board, it is quite remarkable.

[shadokat]

First of all, the campus should have more houses if they can't accomodate all of the rushees. I don't believe it's fair for a woman to go bidless unless she suicides a sorority. It's truly sad that 60% of IU's women don't get bids. That would make me not want to even bother.

I know on one campus, they petitioned for a new sorority, and a new national came in and started up to avoid from chapters having too many members. Also, they should consider raising total slightly, to at least make rush a 50/50 proposition.

Also, women on the campus could unite and form a group and then get a national to back them that isn't on the campus. Just a thought...

Heather

[shadokat]

For those of you wanting info on snap bidding, I can tell you that it's a good thing if it works. If a woman is given a bid in the "snap" process, she does not have to accept it, and can COB. BUT, if she suicided, she can't do anything for a year. This also applies to any woman who drops out of rush.

We have these rules on our campus to avoid sororities telling women that they can just drop out of rush and they'll COB them. This happened a lot, and it caused huge problems.

[PenguinTrax]

Shadokat,

According to National Panhellenic rules, if a woman does not receive an invitation to membership during formal recruitment bid matching, she is eligible for further recruitment either by snap bidding or C.O.B. This applies to any woman, regardless of the number of preferences listed on her preference card. If a potential member lists one choice or three, and doesn't get an invitation to join, she can be snap bid or pledged via C.O.B. Intentional single preferencing is strongly discouraged as it limits the opportunity for a girl to receive an invitation for membership.

There are times, however, when a potential member only attends one preference party and, therefore, has no choice but to put down one selection on her card. If this woman declined an event invitation 'with interest', she can put down the names of those groups on her preference card, if she wishes.

It is only when a potential member refuses to accept the invitation offered to her OR when a pledge drops out of a chapter before initiation, that the woman is ineligible from participating in recruitment for one calendar year.

Barbara
Rush Forum Moderator

[AOX81]

This is what I don't get. People say that they are out for quality not quantity...so why is it that you would COB or snap bid somebody that you didn't even put on your bid list? There is a sorority at my school that tries to pick up every single bidless rushee...even though they didn't put them on any of their lists. Does anybody else do this, if so, could you please explain to me why you do this?? I know why the group at our school does it, because of numbers, their national is alwasy breathing down their necks.

[gphi2k]

Originally posted by AOX81:
This is what I don't get. People say that they are out for quality not quantity...so why is it that you would COB or snap bid somebody that you didn't even put on your bid list?

I was gonna put this under the dirty rushing thread, but it's more dirty bidding than rushing. In answer to your question, at my school, once you sign a bid card, whether you are matched or not, you can't rush, informally or other wise for a year. That being said, you can receive snap bids, at least at my school, from any house. I got caught in a year where all 70 rushes wanted the same 3 houses and quota was 6. Many many girls did not get matched, including myself and my best friend. I ended up getting snap bids from 4 houses, only one of which I had put on my pref list.

The problem with the process of allowing certain houses to have the snap bid list before houses that reached quota can have it allows for the potential of dirty bidding, as happened to me and my best friend.
We both got snap bids from a house at our school, which will remain nameless. We both wanted Gamma Phi and had it put at the top of our bid card. My friend asked the girl who called her from XYZ if there was a possibility that she would receive a call from her number one choice. I asked the same question when I was called and we were both told no. It was a lie. My friend accepted their bid, cause she wanted so badly to be a part of the greek system at my school. I did not, because I wanted to be a Gamma Phi, not just a sorority girl. At 3 o'clock, on the nose (when, it turns out, the houses who made quota got the snap bid list) both my friend and I got called from Gamma Phi. It was a total shock and I, of course, accepted the bid right away. My friend, however, could not. She was stuck. She had to either refuse the bid from the other soror and be non-greek for a year, or simply stay where she was. She chose to stay at the house she had already accepted and I joined Gamma Phi.

My point is that the system is inperfect. In the end, it worked out well for the both of us, but the potential for dirty bidding is there when actives are incharge of offering the girls on the snap bid lists their bids. I just wanted to share my story because it was really a bad first impression for me and my friend of the greek system at my school, and also underscores the above asked question. Some houses really do want to go for quantity not quality. And as much as I love and respect my best friend, some girls are more intent on joining ANY house, than a particular one. These two issues join together to make houses either very weak or very strong. (Side note: with practices such as 'dirty bidding' the house that my friend joined ended up encounting a lot of problem with disintrested sisters who joined just to be in a sorority).

Leslie



[This message has been edited by gphi2k (edited February 20, 2001).]

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by gphi2k:
We both got snap bids from a house at our school, which will remain nameless. We both wanted Gamma Phi and had it put at the top of our bid card. My friend asked the girl who called her from XYZ if there was a possibility that she would receive a call from her number one choice. I asked the same question when I was called and we were both told no. It was a lie. My friend accepted their bid, cause she wanted so badly to be a part of the greek system at my school. I did not, because I wanted to be a Gamma Phi, not just a sorority girl.

Leslie,
If your friend verbally accepted the bid from XYZ, then got a call from Gamma Phi Beta (who she truly wanted), would she have been able to "get out of" being in XYZ, since she didn't actually sign a bid card yet?

If these girls deceived you into thinking that there was no way that more bids were forthcoming, then a formal complaint might have been the way to go. Did your friend have to wait a year, but did she get Gamma Phi in the end? Please let us know.

[gphi2k]

Leslie,
If your friend verbally accepted the bid from XYZ, then got a call from Gamma Phi Beta (who she truly wanted), would she have been able to "get out of" being in XYZ, since she didn't actually sign a bid card yet?

If these girls deceived you into thinking that there was no way that more bids were forthcoming, then a formal complaint might have been the way to go. Did your friend have to wait a year, but did she get Gamma Phi in the end? Please let us know.[/B]

In this situation, snap bids can be accepted verbally, without actually signing a bid card. It's stupid. Verbal acceptance is binding. The girls at Gamma Phi were great and put in a complaint to Panhell at our school. Originally, Panhell said 'Tough. She accepted XYZ's bid. If she's that hell bent on joining Gamma Phi, she'll be willing to wait a year." Nice huh? It was all the more difficult because the Panhell president was in our house, and she had also mislead my friend into thinking she would not be called (she did not know my friend wanted Gamma Phi so I don't think it was personal). It caused a big controversy, but my friend decided that in the end, she didn't mind being in XYZ and that fighting what happened would mean XYZ would find out she didn't want them as badly, and if she lost, it would be difficult for her to be accepted at XYZ. So she gave up. She became a member of XYZ, not Gamma Phi. I was upset as were all the girls in my house who were trying to fight for her. But as I said, some girls just want to be in a sorority.

Leslie

[shadokat]

CutiePie,

Technically, yes the woman could've accepted the bid from Gamma Phi if she had not yet signed a bid card.

I just did bid matching at a campus where nine women out of 45 went bidless (20%) because they all wanted the same two houses, and those two houses reached quota by the time they got to these women. And in most cases, these women either intentionally single pref'd or only put down the two houses. Now, with that being said, quota was 7 and only the two "popular" houses made quota. So instead of opening up the possibility of snap bidding, they are letting all those bidless women COB, which means the top two houses will take all those bidless women through COB. If that isn't a prescription for dirty rushing, I don't know what is.

On my campus, we had a big problem with sororities telling women to intentionally single pref their house, and told them they wouldn't get a bid through formal rush, and that then the women could COB. And this worked for awhile. Then, finally, the Greek Advisor listened to the complaints of the smaller groups who thought this was the case, and they made a rule that any woman who intentionally single prefs a house and doesn't get a bid cannot COB at that house. This did cut down on intentional single preferencing, and it also stopped a little of the dirty rushing.

It's a shame that women go bidless. What's a bigger shame is that sororities give women the idea that they have a chance to get a bid by inviting them to preference, with no intention of offering a bid in the first place.

But that's all just my opinion

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by gphi2k:
She became a member of XYZ, not Gamma Phi.

Leslie,
Is she happy now, or does she still kind of harbor the wish/ that she was a Gamma Phi?

Believe me, I know where girls are coming from when they initially think "better to go Greek somewhere than not at all".
The important thing is to be *happy* no matter where you finally end up!

[This message has been edited by CutiePie2000 (edited February 20, 2001).]

[33girl]

Originally posted by AOX81:
There is a sorority at my school that tries to pick up every single bidless rushee...even though they didn't put them on any of their lists. Does anybody else do this, if so, could you please explain to me why you do this?? I know why the group at our school does it, because of numbers, their national is alwasy breathing down their necks.

That's basically why most sororities would do it, unless there is a huge stigma on campus about coming in under quota. What I love is when a national tells the chapter to bid anything with a pulse to get numbers up, so the chapter does, then 4 months later the national comes back and tells them they should be more selective. Arrgh, don't even wanna go there.

[Allie_XO]

Originally posted by CutiePie2000:

Believe me, I know where girls are coming from when they initially think "better to go Greek somewhere than not at all".
The important thing is to be *happy* no matter where you finally end up!

I agree that people should go where they would be happy. Here we have two parties on pref night, and I went to both like a good rushee and kept an open mind to the end, but I knew that I would only be happy in Chi Omega. I love the girls in the other sorority and some of my closest friends are in that house, but I just never connected with them. Anyway, I didn't want to list this second sorority. At all. And my PX advised against it and said that I might not get a bid unless I was high on the XO list and I might end up regretting it. I decided that I would rather be independant, than be in this other sorority. It just wouldn't be right to settle for these girls. I really love these other girls too, but I just didn't feel it and couldn't give them everything. So, in the end I suicided for XO, and it worked out great.

Rushees need to go where they feel like they belong. I honestly believe that I would not have regretted being independant if I haven't gotten XO. It is just where I feel at home and I wouldn't have felt right in that other house.

I get so angry with people who pledged GLOs because they want to be like those girls, because they are the most popular with their fav. fraternity, or for some other idiotic reason. Almost all of them have ended up dropping out, and because their pledge time is so short (like 6 weeks) they have been initiated and cannot join a GLO where they really feel at home. It really is sad. OK - that is my two cents worth.

Allie

[This message has been edited by Allie_XO (edited February 20, 2001).]

[gphi2k]

Originally posted by CutiePie2000:
QUOTE]
Leslie,
Is she happy now, or does she still kind of harbor the wish/ that she was a Gamma Phi?

It worked out in the end just fine. We had been best friends since junior high, so in many ways, joining different houses expanded our previously parallel social circle. It also brought better relations between our houses. She ended up becoming an XYZ through and through. So in that way, it all worked out in the end (i guess she would never have joined the house if she didn't think it was possible to be comfortable in the house). But it did leave a bitter taste in both our mouths where Panhell was concerned. To this day, I believe that system to be corrupt, at least at my school. I could be baised, but that's what an experience like that will do to you.

Leslie

[CutiePie2000]

Leslie,
I have emailed you privately. Believe me, I know what it is like when the Panhellenic rules don't work out in your favor!
Glad that you both made the best of a less than perfect situation!