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Originally Posted by beebadger
Hi. My daughter was invited to a COB event and is interested in the house. How do these events typically work? Will the house have more than one event? How do they decide whether to give someone a bid? Are their usually more PNMs invited back than spots open or does this vary by house or college? Thanks!
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This depends on the campus. On many campuses, COB events will be open to all campus women not already in a sorority. Most of the time each sorority eligible for COB (i.e. not at campus total) will have a few different events -- often with a theme like Fondue Night or Luau -- and maybe a final invitation-only party. Sometimes all the parties are by invitation only, and sometimes they're all open events. COB tends to be more informal than Formal Recruitment in terms of manner and dress, but this can vary... on some campuses girls do get dressed up for COB events. Typically a "closed" COB event will be dressy.
If your daughter is interested in COB, she should keep careful watch around campus for flyers announcing open events, or if she doesn't see anything, she should call the Greek Life office to figure out which sororities are participating in COB and if the events are either open or by invitation-only.
At my friend's campus, the sororities actually have a sign up/information night where all interested women "sign up" for COB eligibility and the sororities invite the women they're interested in from that group of women. At another campus, they might have a simple sign-up table at the beginning of the year and all women who've signed up for interest in COB are invited to all parties. It varies from school to school, really.
How the chapters decide to extend a bid is generally secret sorority information. Suffice it to say, it's important for your daughter to meet with and click with as many girls as possible to maximize her chances of obtaining a bid.
AND YES, many more women are invited back than there are spots for, unless the sorority is really struggling with numbers. Sometimes there are only 2 spots, sometimes there's 25. Most of the time there are fewer spots open than even in formal recruitment -- however, there are also fewer PNMs that participate in COB.
Your daughter's college Greek Life office will be the best place for her to get specifics on her college, since COB really does vary from school to school.