what are the sororities like???

Good luck if boulderalphaphi isn’t already following you

Not to diminish your experience, because it is 100% valid and I know many women who got to the end with a top house only to be disappointed, but all sororities use an algorithm called release figure management (RFM), so it’s not as personal or as manipulative as you might think. The way it works is the houses who have the highest return rates (because they are the more popular houses) actually have to cut the highest number of pnms during each round, because so few pnms are dropping them. Where it gets tricky is at the preference round. Those top ranked houses have such a high percentage of pnms listing them as their #1 house for bid day that they rarely have to go down to their “B” list in their rankings for bids. So what happens is that many women who get to preference round with these top houses don’t end up with a bid from them and it feels like they got slighted. Please keep in mind that if you get to preference round with any house, they really like you, it’s just a matter of numbers as to whether you actually get a bid to their house.

aphi and their bid promising last year was crazyyyy, me and two other girls all got bid promised multiple times just to open out. i’d day cards to it not being aphi, which in hindsight was a blessing, but sad in the moment

this ^^^^

If you get invited to one house for preference and you list that house, you are guaranteed a bid to that house. If you get invited to two houses for preference and you list both houses, you are guaranteed a bid to one of those houses. If you get invited back to two houses for preference and you only list one house (single intention bid, or “suicide”) then you are not guaranteed a bid and can end up getting a phone call on bid day letting you know you have been released from the process. If that happens to you, you can go through continuous open bidding (COB) to try to get a bid after bid day, or you can go through the spring COB process. If you list two houses after preference and get a bid from a house you don’t want and end up dropping BEFORE initiation, then you have to wait a year until the next fall to rush again.

Do all houses cob? I heard that last year only one house did cob and everyone else met quota?

Typically only one or two houses do open/advertised COB in the spring, but most houses end up taking a few girls due to December grads or girls who drop. You just never hear about it because they find girls through new member class referrals and don’t go through a formal or advertised process. It’s also up to each house and their nationals whether they even take girls through COB or not. I have heard some nationals make their chapters fill any open spots while others do not.

agree-better sisterhood and less drama/pressure in the above houses