bids

Just one opinion here. Sure others will chime in. Most houses alraedy have a number of pnms that are high on their radar or who they know they will want. This is from in-house actives talking up their friends, from Holiday parties, from preview, from spring teas, from active chapter alums talking certain pnms up, active chapter alum recs, following up girls on social media, asking about pnms around home town, etc. So, going in, there are some pnms that have a leg up, so to speak just because they are lower risk/high return pnms based on available information and observation. (This can cut the other way, of course, if a pnm is a questionable reputation or is not well regarded by the actives from the pnm's area). But its not like any house knows they have any pnm in the bag, anyway, but they may have a good feel for fit (or lack of fit) for a large number of pnms -- particulary in-state. If you are not yet on any radar and just show up at recruitment, you can still do well and get bids to top houses because it is just more challenging and you have so little time to make impression in the early rounds of recruitment. This is one reason why OOS girls disproportionally end up at new row houses (which some would say benefits the new row houses enormously and, if you want to meet people from all over the country and be sisters with girls all over the country, a new row house may be best). Good luck.

Agree with above.

The most important thing is to keep an open mind. You can't help it if you're released from a top house just because they already have their friends picked out to be new members. The reason that the bottom half of the houses might take you without close friends pulling for you is because they are losing all the top tier girls to the tip top tier houses.. Some think that the diversity of girls is a real plus of the new row/ lower ranked houses. The old row/ higher ranks are full of girls from the same hometowns whose families have known each other for mutiple generations. In my class, there were very few girls who didn't fit into the OLD SOUTH network. Being from a hometown that is technically in the South, but more like the north (near Washington DC), I've had to deal with a fair amount of loneliness because the girls in my class didn't really want to invest in new friendships. And to be fair, they all had each other. I just felt somewhat lonely. My best friend was a year older than me because she was the only one nice to me. I stuck with it and it didn't improve much. Still I made it to senior year without withdrawing because my mom's sorority friends were her best friends throughout the years and I wanted those relationships too. Unfortunately I guess I won't get them because of the very insular nature of the girls that join the old row/ highly ranked houses. Not bitter, just uninformed before I started recruitment.

Many are already picked out yes, but I would say about 30% get bids that were not rushed in the spring (for old row), probably 80% for new row.

Nothing is to stop new row from filling up their shopping cart early like old row does. In fact it seems to me they are trying to.

Read 3