Did you ever have team captain's who picked teams in grade school? It's sort of like that.
We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, and LABlondeGPhi made a gif to illustrate how bid matching works. It's pretty helpful.
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...5&postcount=50
Bid matching is a two-side process. The computer takes the sorority's bid list and matches them to the bid cards. Each sorority has a "first bid list" which is a list of its first choices for a PNM class. The number of women on the first bid list is approximately quota. (Only approximately, because you don't know what quota will be exactly.) The computer tries to match all of the PNM's #1 choice against all of the sororities' first bid lists. Usually you don't fill a whole PNM class on the first match, so it will keep moving down the bid lists to try to match as many PNMs to their first choice as possible. A PNM will only be given her second choice if the PNM class of her first choice is full before the computer gets to her name on the bid list. It will then try to match her name to her second choice and then her third choice...
If she has no match and the campus follows RFM, she should be matched to one sorority or another. There's a lot of discretion in determining where the unmatched PNMs go, but they all should get a bid from somewhere.
Jane preffed at B and A, but not C. She probably isn't anywhere on C's bid list. She will be placed at B if she is high enough on their bid list. If B fills its class before they get to her name, she will be placed in A, if they have space. If both B and A fill up before they get to her name, and the campus follows RFM, she may be placed in B or A.
To make it more complicated, if she didn't match, and C isn't full, someone may see that she listed C second and contact C to see if they would like to offer her a bid anyway. C may decide to do that and no one will know the difference.
