Yeah, that's definitely the first I've heard that on here.

I know one sorority that only accepts recs from the person designated for that area. For instance, an organized alum group has a person designated as the recommendation chairman. Her signature has to be on that form for a chapter to accept it. Other members may recommend the PNM, but only the official person's recommendation is counted.
Another group, I heard several years ago, discounted recommendations from members of a particular nearby chapter. Now, I think they were doing this "illegally" - that is, against their own sorority's policies.
And I've heard of a third where a few chapters "unofficially" would give greater weight to recommendations from alumnae of their own chapter. Again, against their sorority's official policies.
But in the case of the first sorority, I've been told by 2 different members that that is their official policy.

So if Polly PNM lives in California and her mom is an alumna, but she's rushing in New York, the sorority won't count the rec her mom sends in? I'm sorry but that is stupid. Or could Mom send the rec she writes to the area person and get the area person to also sign it - to put her OK on it?

It seems like the area person has to "sign off" but any member (as per the GLO's policy) may write a recommendation.

If the chapter has an unofficial policy that says all recommendations from any chapter alumnae is weighted more simply because they are from the chapter, then that does not seem right.

And while I understand that all recommendations should be treated the same, I would guess that most chapters value (give weight to) a recommendation from someone they know and respect (i.e. member from the chapter) than perhaps a recommendation from a member (alumnae) of another chapter. Especially when the alumnae may not be known by any of them. That seems normal - and fair - to me.

In Pi Phi, there are local alumnae officers who have just that duty (ACRICs, they're called, or at least they used to be) - collecting RIFs (Pi Phi's word for rec) for women from their area. Chapters are supposed to contact them for any women who don't have RIFs and they'll write one - scouring yearbooks and things like that, even sometimes if it's only a "info only" rec. Of course in Pi Phi there is backup system for women who don't receive RIFs even after this, to ensure that every woman gets a recommendation. In my chapter even after sending out RIF requests we still didn't have RIF forms for the majority of the women we pledged and we used the "backup" method of recommendation. (Hope I'm not revealing too much here).

BUT - as the officer who was in charge of requesting RIFs one year, I find it really crazy that you would limit who can write the RIF to the local area of the chapter. I faced a big problem because not every region even had an alumnae club, and some of those that did didn't appoint ACRIC chairs! And how in the heck would we have gotten the women from the Northern Virginia or Roanoke Pi Phi alum clubs (just to name the two closest to my undergrad chapter) to possibly get RIFs for women from California or Texas? Even cobbling together an "info only" rec for women from those areas would be like crazy impossible for those women!

Would you mind telling us which group this is? It frankly boggles my mind. I honestly wonder if the members who told you this was misinformed or (eek) not following national policy correctly. If they're from the same area/chapter, they could be similarly misinformed...