are less girls getting bids during recruitment?

Six downvotes from the Trolls because someone hit'em with the facts? Everyone knows the percentage was in the 90's, and your scare tactics are an epic fail.

Good grief. Find a new hobby.

You're being downvoted because you read the post incorrectly and your comment made no sense. If you look back even OP said that usually 92% get bids. The less bids OP is referring to is for this upcoming recruitment that has not happened yet.

Not quite sure how that "ripple effect" will work because there will still be the same number of housing participating in recruitment and the same number of women trying to get a bid.

Also, if your grades are too low for formal recruitment I would not count on getting a bid from SK. It will be an extremely competitive process and SK will likely regret hundreds of interested girls. Just a warning to all the PNMs who will inevitably drop houses they think are "bottom tier" and end up not being in a sorority at all.

I think the hope is more that the grade risk PNMs will be discouraged from rushing altogether, along with the sororities making stricter grade cuts

This is absurd and just so blatantly false. First of all a 3.2-3.3 is fine for quite a few houses, and also Panhellenic isn’t going to show favoritism of any kind towards PNMs. It would be a total waste of their time.

Also girls with higher GPAs already have a way better chance of getting a bid

It is strictly against national NPC rules to set a required GPA for participating in recruitment.

I thought schools could only set a GPA requirement if they had spring rush and therefore were using the fall semester GPA (Indiana does this) but recently I found out that Georgia southern has a minimum required HS GPA to rush. Didn’t know that was allowed but I wish we’d do it.

If there is a minimum GPA to go through recruitment, it is coming from the school and not Panhellenic. NPC rules forbid setting a GPA requirement to participate, but the school can do it.

Can you refuse an actual bid, and still go for SK? I understand that you could drop out before you make your last choices, but aren't you hooked into the sorority that you got a bid from, for a year, if you sign your card?

Yes, you are hooked in if you sign your card. You may not participate in colonization if you sign your card and then decline a bid or accept and then drop. The MRABA is a binding NPC agreement for one year and you may not participate in any NPC recruitment during that time, meaning COB as well as colonization.

Yes you're right, my bad. If you sign the binding agreement then indeed you cannot participate in colonization, but you can still drop out before then. IDK how SK will do colonization here, but at a university close to my hometown, I heard that a new colonizing sorority even spoke during opening convocation and had a tent/table out during recruitment week with info for PNMs and this was allowed by Panhellenic. IDK if Bama Panhel will allow the same.

SK will participate in formal recruitment for IWT round only, to give all PNM's information, then start their recruitment after formal recruitment is over.

It will be interesting to see what happens since panhellenic is changing to only two pref parties instead of three.

Still, can't PNMs choose to drop after pref parties but before signing the binding agreement and still go for colonization?

I don't really understand Panhellenic's decision to reduce pref down to only 2 options - we have so many sororities here, it seems like a terrible choice to limit options for PNMs.

The 2 pref parties is an NPC thing and every school has to do it

PNM's who attend pref round but do not sign a card, in other words they drop out of consideration after pref, are free to go for colonization or COB. The reason the third pref is dropped is because statistics show that 1) a high percentage of PNM's do get a bid from their 1st or 2nd choice, and 2) a significant percentage of PNM's decline a bid from their third choice. So statistically, there is no actual reason to continue with three pref choices and the large number of chapters on campus is not a factor. Also, as far as COB this year, because of colonization, Panhellenic has the option to limit COB to a week or so after formal and then put a moratorium on it for a few weeks to allow SK to have a better start to their recruitment. I don't know if they are going to do that or not, but it makes good sense. Houses under total who really want to add members would need to COB immediately and quickly, which is better anyway for all concerned.

Most schools are moving towards having two pref parties, even big SEC schools. I think ole miss and UGA already did. The idea is that a PNM is much more likely to be happy with their 2nd choice house than their 3rd. Most girls I know who had three parties had two houses they really liked and one they hated.