Sorority Recruitment and Bid Day information

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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<p>We are a week out form the official beginning of sorority recruitment at Alabama. I am heading down to help in a little over a week and I wanted to share some info with parents who have daughters that are going to be apart of this amazing process.</p>

<p>First of all if you look at your Greek Chic (for those of you who have it or look on line…sorry :frowning: )…and you go to the times for the parties you will a time listed that says Potential New Member (PNM) Rho Chi Group meeting. That’s when your daughter will get her party list for the day. She may have a moment to text you the list as she is walking to her first house but don’t worry if you don’t hear from her right away. </p>

<p>On Preference Day her Rho Chi is going to take her cellphone and not return it until after she has signed her bid card. There are several reasons for doing this but the big one is that she needs to be focused on the process and make her own decision without outside influence. Depending on who your daughters Rho Chi is the phone might be taken BEFORE she gets her party schedule. This happened to us and I will admit I was frantic because I had no idea how many parties my daughter was attending. I know that it will be a long day for many of you…hang in there :).</p>

<p>I wanted to let you know that on Bid Day both Magnolia and Colonial Drive will be closed. There will be barricades and police there. There will be between 6000-7000 people on those two streets!!! You will not be able to park there. In the past the parking lots by the baseball fields has been available to park in and the Crimson Ride has shuttled parents to and from Sorority Row. The girls will walk to Bryant Denny at 9:30. Parents…you go to the lawn of the the sorority your daughter listed first on her Bid Card that she signed the night before. Tell your daughter to text you when she opens her bid (in case you need to change lawns). If I were you I’d plan to be there no later than 9:30…especially if you want to see the girls walk. </p>

<p>The sororities will all be taking their group pictures before Bid opening. A Professional photographer will moving from house to house taking pictures of each class of young women…at least that’s the plan currently. In the past they did this after the PNMs arrived at their respective houses and it took FOREVER. We hope this will make the process a little more timely since they will only have to take pledge class pictures and full house pics. These pics will be available for purchase as well as candids that are taken. They will give you the ordering info for the group ics. The candids will be put on a spread sheet and the sheet will be delivered to your daughters sorority where she will choose the ones she wants to purchase. The cost will be deducted from her Greek Resources Purchase fund account.</p>

<p>The sororities will have brunches for the PNMs and their families. In their Bid Day bag your daughter will most likely have several wrist bands that you will need to wear in order to get past the security guards at the doors. NOTE…NO BOYFRIENDS. With 200 members, alumna and then 100 PNMS plus parents they have to limit this somehow. These brunches are lovely and in many cases there will some sort of an informational meeting afterwards and you are usually given a packet of information and asked to sign a few things.</p>

<p>I know you want to spend as much time with your daughter as possible but remember that half of the sororities will leave for retreat later on Bid Day. The sororities that do not go on retreat will most likely have some sort of meeting for their PMNs and an activity. those sororities will then leave early the next morning.</p>

<p>I called The Trunk (all things Greek and more) and they will be open from 9 am to appx 7 pm on Bid Day and also on Sunday. </p>

<p>If any of you have questions please feel free to pm me. I am happy to give y’all my cell phone number and we can chat…whether it’s about the process of recruitment or Bid Day.</p>

<p>This is an exciting time. Again Alabama has a record amount of girls going through the recruitment process and I would be surprised if we don’t have the largest recruitment in the United States.</p>

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<p>My daughter pledged 2 years ago, and I can confirm that bid day is exciting for both the girls and their parents. We parked at the ten Hoor garage which is a short walk to sorority row. I’m not sure if it will be open or not this yea
In 2010, a terrible storm developed during the last preference party which delayed the process by about 2 hours. With no cell phone, I was so anxious to learn how things went with the parties, but had to wait. My daughter had had 3 favorites all week and could not decide. After preference she rearranged the order of her favorites from where they had been all week.I had a bad feeling about this, and had she phoned me, I may have told her to reconsider. But she knew what she was doing, I wasn’t there.
As it turned out, had I talked her into leaving her 3 favorites in the original order, things may not have worked out for the best. The house she dropped to 3rd, she cannot see herself in at all now.
So, as moms, we want to be there for our daughters, but this is a decision they need to make without the influence of friends and families.
I can tell you, we were standing on the wrong lawn and had to run to the correct house through a crowd of people. (her first and second choice share the same letters) House 1 was on Magnolia, House 2 on Colonial!
I hope some parents post rush results here on CC and let us know how things turn out.
Best of luck to all, catfan</p>