not getting your top house

^^^^^ Yes. Read and heed. Take Note.

Made-up but legit example:

A Top PNM will get invites from 15 homes after open house round, and thus get to choose her 12 houses for second round.

An average pnm will get 10 invites after open house round, and thus attend all 10 second-round parties to maximize her options for a bid.

A Top PNM will receive 9 invites to third round, and get to choose her 8 to attend.

An average pnm will get 4 invites to third round, and thus attend all 4 parties to continue maximizing her bid options.

A Top PNM will receive 8 pref invites, choosing her final 3 carefully.

An average pnm will get 2 invites to pref, and attend both to continue her maximization of bid options.

Both the Top PNM and the average pnm become synonymous when both (obviously) only receive ONE bid on bid day. Remarkably, both may end up joining the same house.

@#5 If you don't get a full card but have good grades and at least a
rec for Delta Zeta, Gamma Phi, or AOII you will be alright. Also, I
hope you do not have a bad rep in your hometown. There is a house that really doesn't need rec here but I am not going to be shady. BTW I got a
mid-tier being OOS and a non-legacy if that helps you. Good luck!

If you attend even one pref and you have maximized your options you are guaranteed a bid. For example I only preffed one house and I knew I would receive a bid there even if I was dead last on their bid list. Although hopefully I was not.

Not really a good answer. @Curious, if you make it to pref night and attend where you are invited and rank them, you are safe and will get a bid. Throughout recruitment, you must accept all invitations and rank all houses you attended after each round. You do not get to 'drop' a house that you don't like. You do not need a full card for every round, you just need to Maximize Your Options and keep going to get that bid.

I was addressing @ Nville Predators Gyrl. @Active has it right!

If you get invited to two houses for pref and attend both, you will get a bid from one of them. It depends on how you both rank each other. It's possible that you will get a house that ranked you absolutely last, but you will never know that. If you are invited back to pref, they are saying that they do want you! On bid day you will be no different than the girl who was was #1 on their list.

If you get invited to two houses for pref and only attend one, you run the risk of no bid if you aren't high enough on that house's list.

If you get invited to one house and you attend their pref party, you will get a bid from them.

If at any point during recruitment you don't attend a party you were invited to, you risk being released completely. GO EVERYWHERE YOU ARE INVITED!!

Contrary to what the so-called mid tier OOS Gyrl posted above, DZ and Gphi and AOPi all cut girls throughout recruitment week! Every house does!! No one, and I mean no one, on here can speak about what other houses do or don't do behind closed doors, especially as it pertains to return rates, grade requirements, recs, score cards, and bid lists. Every house is great at Alabama and if you buy into petty ranks and old biddy talk you may find yourself without a bid. Good Luck!

It means that you don't skip parties and when you rank the houses at the end of the round you put down every house that was on your schedule (as opposed to suiciding). If you do this and you have at least one house on pref, you get a bid. Its just a way to prevent PNMs from trying to completely get out of going to houses they don't want to go to

@X - thanks!

Yes, the houses with lower return rates (less desirable houses) have to invite back a larger amount of girls than houses with higher return rates (top houses) which helps maximize their options as well for getting a decent sized pledge class.

So yes, sometimes a house will issue an invite back to a girl who was not scored very highly. It's just the way RFM works.