[TSteven]

What Titchou and DeltaBetaBaby said. But to expand on that a little, it is possible to miss a preference night and still receive a bid. But it depends on the chapter and how your IFC rush is set up.

Have you been formally invited to the preference event? If so, contact the rush chair or chapter president (or the contact person on the invite) and let them know you have lab that night and that you are interested.

In general, for some chapters a “formal preference night” may be more of a formality (maybe required by the IFC). But the chapter may already know who they want to bid and the party is to seal the deal or maybe geared toward those men who may be undecided. In other words, you may not “have to” attend to receive a bid. But you will need to contact the rush chair (whomever) to let them know your situation.

Other chapters might only extend bids from the men who attend their preference event. Again, by contacting the rush chair, they might consider extending you a bid if they know the reason why you are unable to attend.

If you haven’t received an invite to the preference party yet, is there someone in the chapter (ideally a friend) you may talk with and let them know your situation? Hopefully, the member should be able to give you advice.

Finally, I am not advocating missing your lab, but if you are required to attend the preference party to receive a bid, check with the lab assistant (or whomever runs the lab) to see if you may miss your lab and attend a lab on a different date. For example, when I was an undergrad, some professors would allow us to make up a lab as long as we gave them advance notice that we would be missing our scheduled lab *and* they could fit us in one of their other labs.

Again, I am not advocating missing lab, but if the only way to secure a bid is to attend the preference party, then missing the lab may be something you may want to consider. But I would only recommend doing so if you felt it would do little or no harm to you academically. Again, attendance wasn't required in that lab I noted above. However, it was pretty much "necessary" to attend if you wanted to make a B or better in the class.

Best of luck.