I also wanted to say that it complicates the issue because there are always girls who say " I didn't have any recs and I did great!" when really they just didnt know they had a rec because a friend of their mom or a teacher or the local alum group sent in a rec for them

Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes! This happens all the time and the clueless, over confident PNM thinks that she was so super special that she got into fabulous ABC without a rec., when in actuality her kindergarten teacher/ballet instructor/choir director sent in a rec., unbeknownst to the PNM.

I really don't think you can equate choosing a college with sorority recruitment. At the heart of it, all NPC orgs provide pretty comparable experiences.

As I said, the advice from Auburn PH is dumb (not to mention unfairly classist and whatnot), but let's keep it in perspective.

My sweet daughter was invited back to 9 of her top 12 for the philanthropy round. She is extremely excited! Keep praying for decent weather, please!

Good advice!! I was also an engineering major and now I am a professor. I know many women who have combined challenging majors with sorority membership. The older members were very supportive and helpful my first year.

Classes had started when I went through recruitment, and I had an engineering classmate who was paired up with me during 2 rounds at her chapter. I'm pretty sure I was her "rush crush," because she gave me the saddest look in class when I didn't return to her house for pref (this was back in the day when we did decline "extra" invites -- I was invited to 4 chapters for pref, but we could only go to 2). After the second round, I'd realized that the conversations tended to fall flat after the rusher asked "what's your major?" Many people are intimidated by science, and they would generally say something like, "Wow," then change the subject. It made me feel weird and nerdy. Gamma Phi Beta became my solid favorite due to what they did at the start of the 3rd round. Three sisters I hadn't met yet greeted me in the entryway, and said, "are you an engineering major?" I thought, uh oh, but one of the other sisters said, "Sarah thought she saw you in the building! So are we!" They made me feel special, and I knew I didn't have to be worried that my major was a turn-off. That was the "aha moment" for me, and I knew I'd found my home. I can't promise this will happen for your daughter, but I'd encourage her to stick it out. What she is feeling right now is natural and not unusual.

D has a full schedule, but lost 2 favorites. She's feeling more rested and relaxed today. She has really been looking forward to this round. I'm hoping she can move forward without worrying about the why's of what she didn't get.

And in case you're interested to know - she was kept by the one where she didn't have a rec.

^^^
Where she did not obtain a rec ahead of time....
She may have one and not know until bid day

I just dont want girls to think more or less about any one group because they got invited back and they did not have a rec. They might have one they did not know about

Exactly!

Yep, you never know what recs or letters of support might be lurking in the background.

After I pledged and found out you had to have a rec to receive a bid, said, "but I didn't HAVE one!". "Oh yes you did", and then the actives named two women, one a teacher at my HS, and the other, the mom of one of my male friends, both alums of the chapter who at that time, wrote the recs for all the girls from my HS. Didn't even know they were sorority women.

I wasn't trying to paint with that wide of a brush. I am just perplexed as to why one would put in all this effort to get to ABC U and then pump the breaks.

Thank you everyone for all the encouraging messages about engineering and sororities.

My daughter was asked back to 6 houses. While most girls would be disappointed to not have a full schedule, my daughter is excited to be only 6 houses away to her new home! ;)

In the end you can only join one aumom. And I think the initial cuts are the easiest to handle. How attached could you really get after 20 minutes? These schedules sound exhausting to me too!

Well, no. I certainly didn't have the experience that an NPC member at Auburn has, and vice versa. Not better or worse, but certainly they might feel they were in another world if they came to my campus.

But I've said many times that I don't get these people from Georgia who send their kids to Harvard and make sure to get a new, warmer wardrobe because it's kind of a given the climate will be different there, but think rush will be the same (and vice versa). I'm sure there are southerners who have ended up at Penn State with "game day dresses" and been a little surprised.

I meant across the NPC groups at the same campus. My point here is that the women who don't have recs likely get placed, if they maximize options and so on, and getting placed in a WRC is not really that different, in the long-run, from having a perfect recruitment.

It doesn't excuse bad advice from the PH, but I also don't think the PNM from a small town in Minnesota should lose sleep over not having a rec to all seventeen groups.

My DD has a full schedule for round 2 but only received invitations from 6 of her top 12. We are from out of state, I was not in a sorority and we unfortunately believed what we read on the Panhellenic website about recs. She did have a few but I wish we would have sought out advice on this website and had a rec from each sorority. Although one top sorority that she had two recs from dropped her but they were in her bottom 5 so she was not upset by that.
She is going into this with an open mind. Last night she said everyone was so sweet and all of the sororities seemed very similar and like they would be great.
There were only a few she felt like the forced conversations were awkward but that's to be expected I suppose.
I'm going to be purchasing some wine for myself to make it through this week...