Bid Night: The night where fears are put to rest, tears are shed openly and everyone in Norris University Center can hear the screaming.

Sorority rushees gathered in front of the Louis Room at Norris on Tuesday night where they nervously chatted, crossed their fingers and were directed to the rooms where they would receive the bid envelopes that would tell them which of Northwestern’s 12 sororities had offered them membership.

All over the second floor of Norris, women bounced on the balls of their feet or sat cross-legged in front of their Rho Chis — the disaffiliated sorority members who guided them through the rush process — waiting to hear the news.

The Rho Chis presented them with flowers before handing over the envelopes with their bid cards inside. As women held their breath and opened them, some jerked up with smiles, cheered and hugged their Rho Chis while others bent over in tears. Heading back outside rushees compared cards, celebrating with their friends and new pledge class members, making frantic cell phone calls, or sharing disappointment or reassurances.

“I know why they call it rush now,” said Alli Segal, a Weinberg freshman. “It’s a rush. I’m happy and I’m lucky to be happy.”

Others were not so lucky. Caitlin Henning sat outside Louis Room with a group of other rushees, debating whether to the bid they recieved to their second- or third-choice sorority.

Henning decided to turn hers down.

“I’m a little disappointed, not with the rush system but that I didn’t have a say,” said Henning, a Weinberg freshman. “I got the one that I said since day one that I didn’t want. I guess it’s their choice to say who they want, but I feel like I should be able to say what I don’t want.”

Screams came regularly from the Louis Room as new pledges went in to meet the rest of their house and don their sorority’s recruitment T-shirts. Coats piled in corners, replaced by tops announcing that Alpha Phis are “Too hot to handle” and chanting “Star light, star bright, I got the wish I wished last night.”

Inside the room music played, and new members wrote their names on cardboard pins with crescent moons or their house letters. Active members distinguished themselves by wearing sailor hats or tying their hair in ribbons with their chapter letters, dancing and encouraging the new members.

“We are so excited, we’re ecstatic,” said Amanda Mitchell, Kappa Alpha Theta’s recruitment chairwoman, an Education junior. “This was an awesome recruitment. We couldn’t have asked for a better pledge class.”

Some new members waited for the rest of their classes to trickle in while others went out to find their friends or hurried off to other responsibilities. Medill freshman Emily Horbar sat on the floor of the women’s restroom in her new Delta Delta Delta shirt, working on an assignment before running off to an evening class with a friend.

“We’re a week behind,” said Hornbar.

Weinberg freshman Marielle Gilbert said she is using the rush experience to help her academically. She plans to write a sociology paper on sorority rush, which she feels was a learning experience.

“I think overall it’s a positive thing to go through,”Gilbert said. “You learn about yourself in terms of what you seek out in people, how you wish to present yourself in general and what you choose to reveal.”

At 6 p.m., Rho Chis rounded up the new members and led them back to the Louis room. There the Rho Chis rejoined their cheering sororities. Christy Lyons, Panhellenic Association’s vice president for membership, introduced the newly elected Panhel president, Kelly Shimizu.

With the formalities over, the active members led their new pledge classes back to the houses to celebrate with special activities including a trip to Chuck E. Cheese’s or a performance by Improv Olympics.

“I felt like this recruitment went really well,” said Shimizu, an Education junior. “I just hope that we can keep up the good work for next year.”

Lyons said she didn’t leave the Panhel office in Scott Hall until 3:30 a.m. Tuesday and was back three hours later to run the preference numbers through the computer and determine bids.

“It’s exhausting, but when you see all these people coming together, you just forget how tired you are because of all the energy,” said Lyons, a Weinberg senior. “I’m almost a little sad to see it over.”