crying on Bid Day
 

Have any of you had to deal with girls that show up to bid day crying because they didn't get their first choice, and if so how did you deal with it?

Yes. All you can do is try to make the new member feel welcome in hopes that she will come around, so to speak. The only time this happened to my chapter, the new member ended up leaving. Of course we wanted her to stay, but since she wasn't happy I think it was better that she depledged. Kind of a sticky situation.

I've never had to deal with crying exactly, but i did deal with girls who looked unhappy to be there...usually they see all of the other girls hanging out at their houses and they get sad if they wanted to be there, but like AchtungBaby80 said, all you can really do is try to make them feel comfortable...it helps if you have really involved bid day moms as well because they can engage the new members and see what they'd like to do since, after all, it is their day :)

AH - a girl in my pledge class was like that. On the way over to the house to use the pool, the girl asked her anchor sis (in DG you get an Anchor Sis on bid day who is usually the person you talked to pref): "Does anyone ever regret going DG?"

It really hurt her Anchor Sis' feelings, but this girl has changed in so many ways over the past year. Everyone didn't know about her at first, but it's fun (not in a mean way) to watch her grow as a person and a woman. Maybe that is why some higher force put her in DG. I don't know.

I think maybe if this coming bid day, my anchor sis comes in crying becuase she didn't get her first choice - I would just tell her about my rush expierence. I mean you can't really get mad at a PNM for it - because they have been through a really stressful week.

i remember my rho chi teeling my entire rush group on bid day that if we were upset about our bids to come talk to them before going to the house. they were trying to make sure we didn't cry to our new chapters. i don't know how or if that worked thouhg. i do know that two of my friends ended up in different houses (although both depledged) and cried their entire bid day because they weren't at the same house, and i don't think that their sisters were able to stop them.

This happened to a sorority at a school I advise, but the twist on this is that the girl filled out her pref card and put us second, and got her first choice. But when she went and picked up her bid card, and she realized she got her first choice, she broke down crying saying that she made a huge mistake and wanted to go DPhiE. It was ugly to say the least. The other sorority said they would not release her, and she ended up depledging and never even going greek. The whole time at bid day, she sat with us and cried and didn't even join in the bid day pictures. It wasn't a fun situation, but there isn't much you can do.

We only had one girl cry at our bid day but it was because her boyfriend :rolleyes: was mad at her for going through rush and he was forcing her :rolleyes: to depledge. She should have kicked him to the curb!

I have posted before on, I think that thread about strange rushees/PNM'S (what's the name of that thread???...) about one of the girls in my group when I was a rho chi who was a "no bid"...oh MAN! She totally freaked out on us! She showed up at bid revealing even though we called her and told her not to...it was a HUGE scene, totally embarrassing :o

Thankfully, it never happened at my chapter while I was there.
This past bid day, a girl I preffed really wanted us and put us first. She ended up with her second choice. She was crying hysterically when she got to the house. One of the girls from this sorority came over to me and asked if I could console the poor girl who was crying. I felt so bad for this chapter because the girl just kept crying and saying, "I wanted Zeta so bad!" I convinced her to stay for the rest of bid day and go out to dinner that night with the sorority. Unfortunately, she depledged the next day.

This happens alot at my school, not just my chapter but at least 3 others too. At my school the PNM's pu there top 3 choices down and are encouraged not to suicide, and many times girls get their second and third choices. I'm not really sure why this is. The year I went through recruitment everyone that went to pref got a bid.

This is so common at the school I went to. When I was a rho chi one of the new members we got called Panhel crying, so they had her call me. She was so upset about getting my sorority. I convinced her to come to the social that night, and when she got there, I immediately got her talking to another woman in the sorority that was at first unhappy with her bid. That helped her out a lot, and she became very good friends quickly with another new member in her class. In the end, she was very happy and made a great sister.

sueali
 

I would suggest looking at how your school is doing recruitment and release figures if this is common in a number of groups. How many sororities do you have total? I take it you have three party pref. - I don't know the rec. off the top of my head but maybe you are having too many pref parties and it should go down to two. Meaning a women going into pref has a better idea about her realistic choices to match (because all groups will have to release more women down)

Y'all think the Rho Chis have it bad? Try being the Panhellenic advisor! Then you get to deal with around thirty hysterical girls and their moms! And they think you know why each sorority cut them and all you can say is, "No ma'am, I don't know why your sorority cut your daughter," or "I don't know why you were cross cut, let's see if anyone is COBing," (they always turn that one down).:(

Re: sueali
 

At UNLV we have five sororities. I know that two years ago it was really bad and a lot of people didn't get their first choice. ast year, at least in ADPi, it didn't seem to be that bad. We'll have to wait and see this year.

This will be my 6th recruitment at UNLV (1pnm, 3 as a member, and 2 as an alum) and it has been like this every year, for at least one or two chapters. I'm not sure if it has to do with the 3 prefs. When I was a PNM we only had 4 sorority and 2 prefs and it happened then also, but now that I think about it wasn't as bad.

I think that three party pref is ALWAYS harder on the PNMs. Getting your second choice is one thing but getting your third choice is really a hard thing to reconcile emotionally.

Like Aphigal said, it sounds like you need to look at your release figures. Are the stronger rushing chapters carrying too many women into preference? This can often cause the scenario you've described where a lot of women are not getting their frist choice.