I also know of cases of the opposite...girl pulling for Suzie PNM isn't well-liked in her chapter, Suzie PNM is dropped.

A friend from another chapter came to me early on bid day my senior year and told me that she was pretty sure a friend of hers was going to get dropped from her chapter because of some stupid internal fighting. She knew my chapter was her second choice, and asked me to look out for her on bid day.

I know this might not be as much of a deal in a larger chapter, but what if the girls who are "pulling for her" - as well liked as they may be - graduate, transfer or for some reason are no longer in the equation? I would certainly hope that sorority members are not so stupid as to vote for a girl just because Peggy Popular loves her. (Oh shit, wait, we were. Never mind. :p)

In all seriousness, if the girl turns out to be a good member who everyone likes, yeah, that sucks for the legacy, but maybe the other girl ultimately fit into the chapter better. I kind of doubt that people would destroy every bit of social currency they had pushing for a girl they knew wasn't a good fit. If you're a legacy and just hanging on by the skin of your teeth by pref, instead of feeling confident, maybe that just isn't the place for you.

Dang, I would hope that sororities would have the decency to cut legacies who didn't fit before prefs and not string them on until then!

But if a girl is at pref, that means they want her in their chapter. They just might not want her as badly as they wanted someone else.

On the flip side, at schools where you pref three chapters, if you list ABC then DEF, you could match to neither and end up in XYZ, where if you had listed DEF first, you would have matched there**. So sometimes the PNM's end up in their third choice because they aren't honest enough with themselves about where they belong.

**NB: This is not an example of getting cross-cut. Cross-cutting is an urban legend that I'd be happy to explain elsewhere.

Oh, I know. But most NPCs require that a legacy be placed on the first bid list.

I was looking for the "Like" button about this being bumped.:o I am so embarrassed.

Me, too. We need "like" buttons. For thumbs-up. Or something.

How is this possible? Why wouldn't you be matched to DEF?

Because first bid lists are matched to Choice #1 first. DEF could be filled by the time second choices are matched.

Computerized matching is a huge time saver but I think the methodology of bid matching was best learned by being there during hand matching. Essentially, they went through each PNM and called out the first choice. If she was on that group's first bid list, the person would say "Match" and everybody else would cross her off of their list. If she was on someone else's first list, then the first person on their second bid list would bump up to the first bid list.

After all first choices were read off one time, they went through them again, to see if anybody had been bumped up to the first bid list for their first choice. This continued until there were no matches for first choices. Then second choices would start. So, DEF may have filled up with women who put them first before Suzy PNM's second choice came up.

The way bid matching is supposed to work is that once you make it onto a chapter's first bid list you stay there until you either match to them or you get bid somewhere else. If a PNM puts DEF second but she's on their first bid list she'll stay on their first bid list and match to DEF once ABC, which she put first, reaches quota before reaching her name. Putting a chapter second doesn't lessen your chances of matching. If you are on their first bid list you stay there. A PNM gets "cross-cut" when she's so far down on both (all) chapter's bid lists that both (all) reach quota before ever getting to her.

Someone once explained the first bid list as a box. Once you get put in the box you don't get out of the box until you match somewhere.

This is correct. It doesn't matter where she put DEF. If she is on the first bid list, she'll get DEF. The above scenario occurs for women who are low on DEFs bid list, and it wouldn't matter if they put DEF first with five exclamation points and a cherry on top. If they aren't high enough on the list, they aren't high enough.

When I rushed, computers were used but after prefs you actually wrote out your final 2 choices on a piece of paper and I wrote out "PI BETA PHI!!!!!" for number one. No way that computers let you emphasize your choices these days, much less with !! and a cherry, lol...

But they KNOW you want that cherry on top!:D

You're saying that she would indeed match to DEF, right? I had a situation in my head where that wasn't the case, but it would be the very rare exception, I think.

Does computer matching use the exact same logic as hand matching? Or is it optimizing the number of matches overall?