http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/icons/icon14.gif Yup ;)

I have been following Bama's 2020 recruitment and incidentally saw this on their Panhellenic website. (Emphasis in the quoted text is mine.)

I think it's a great way to be more inclusive with regard to rec letters. I'm sure that within a couple of years, sororities will figure out how to weigh the letters accordingly. I'm glad to see that things are moving on this front.

I'm personally of the opinion that having a generic academic letter from someone who knows you is waaaaaaay better than having a generic letter from an alum you met just to fill the rec letter requirement.

Strictly speaking, since my sorority requires that a member (alum or collegian) write a rec for a PNM before she's invited to pref, a "generic" rec from a non-member isn't even worth the paper it's written on.

Some people think you have to personally know the PNM to write a rec. No, you don't. Look...a rec is about character and personality. The chapter already has the list of activities, the awards and honors.

What they need to know are things like does this girl tell the truth? Is she dependable? Is she kind to others? Does she enjoy pushing people around? Like to cause drama? Is she a hypochondriac? Is she shy? Maybe the reason her grades are a little low is that she was really sick her entire sophomore year...that title she won as Top Camper is more of an honor than you might realize.

And I don't have to personally know her. I can get that info from someone else. Maybe I know someone who goes to her church, or coaches her team, or who drove her carpool in 9th grade.

It's not the good girls we need to know about. It's the bad ones. And frankly, it's a crap shoot. I've seen girls with sterling recs turn out to be ones whose goal was to sleep with the entire football team, or who are so bedazzled by their pot-dealing boyfriend they ruin the reputation of the entire chapter. Or one that a chapter could have easily found an alum who might have warned them that this NM has major mental problems, found after she took a knife to a classmate. Even with recs, you never really know.

We used to never ask a PNM to find a rec. That was the chapter's job.
But when you have 2200 PNMs, you could have a crew of 30 working 24/7 all summer long and not be able to find recs on all of them. Asking PNMs to find recs helps.

BTW, it's pretty easy to see that a rec writer doesn't really know anything about the PNM.

My sorority has basically the same requirement and I disagree. I mean, sure, this type of recommendation isn't worth it to the sorority who requires the rec to be from an alumna.

However, the content of a rec from a non-member can still be extremely valuable. And that's what I'm referring to when I say that I think sororities will figure out how to weigh these recommendations.

I'm sure each organization will do it differently. Perhaps some will continue to disregard the content of the non-alumnae recommendations. Perhaps some will use the content of the non-alumnae recommendations to have an alumna write a recommendation for a PNM they really like. Perhaps some will change their internal policies to allow for PNMs to have a recommendation from a non-alumna.

I have no idea how this will go, but I do personally think that this is a good step forward in terms of decreasing the variance in quality of recommendation content received based on PNM connections.

I don't disagree with most of the content of what you've written in your posts, I just disagree on who can write a valuable recommendation. After college, I used to work on the admissions side of higher education and I've also had the privilege of writing recommendations for my sorority for people I did and didn't know.

You're basically saying that if you don't personally know the PNM, you still have to know someone you trust who does personally know the PNM to write a reliable rec. If a PNM has a 2nd degree connection like that, then IMO that is the obviously the person to go to for the rec. However, not everyone has that type of connection.

A teacher or guidance counselor who knows the PNM well would also be the person to know these types of things about the PNM. Both of these positions involve people who observe a lot while students are in school or supervising their after-school activities. Teachers and guidance counselors also have lots of experience writing recommendations for students to college.

College admissions offices are certainly looking for recommendations about a student's character and not simply regurgitation of a resume that is already on the college application. Sure, some applicants get recommendations from teachers who do not know them, but those aren't considered strong recommendations.

If someone doesn't have 1st or 2nd degree connection to sorority alumnae, I still think that having a teacher/coach/guidance counselor who knows them personally write a rec is much more valuable in terms of finding out the PNM's character.

Also, having more sources for quality recommendations would help sororities be more inclusive. This is a seemingly unpopular opinion on GreekChat, but I do believe that WOC are more disadvantaged by the necessity to get recommendations for some NPC organizations and/or some campuses.

Yes. As carnation has repeatedly reminded us this summer one of the responsibilities and privileges of sorority membership is using your social and community connections to learn of, and promote greek life to, quality high school and college-age women. This job usually falls equally on sorority collegians and alums, who will then write/revue the recs so necessary to the process.

When a campus uses deferred recruitment, the opportunity to become better acquainted with WOC who might be interested in NPC membership but have few NPC connections falls more toward sorority collegians. I believe the current generation of collegians is plenty anxious to have WOC join their sororities, just as there have been plenty of collegians during the past 70+ years with the same attitude.

For the benefit of those who currently doubt that WOC have not, until just now, been given a fair shake at NPC membership I can only state do your homework on the subject and be fair to those attempting to understand and gently correct your misreading of NPC history.

One can always hope we'll continue noting upward trends in the total number of WOC joining our NPC groups, but as carnation laments WOC sometimes have other logical ideas.

As someone who just witnessed a dear friend's daughter go through recruitment at Alabama, the rec requirement is a MAJOR hurdle for women who aren't from in state, who don't come from the South, who are first in the family to go to college and I could go on. The rec, while we may not like to admit it, is a way to keep exclusivity alive, on a way larger scale, than any legacy policy ever could.

My friend's daughter had recs to many of the chapters at Alabama, and it didn't mean a whole lot. As a matter of fact, the two groups she had at the end, she didn't have recs for, and the organization she is now a new member of, she didn't have a rec for them.

So carnation, and you know i love you, but the rec didn't help her one bit in the sororities she did have them for, and didn't matter in the ones she ended up with. Does that make sense and explain why they exist then? I don't think so.

What happens behind the scenes if a girl doesn't have a rec and the sorority loves her: they get an alum to come write one based on her application. At a lot of schools, the need to do this is rare because most girls have recs but I can see how Bama would need to do that. That could be what happened!

I think that often these days, we use them as a way to warn a chapter away from a girl who could be a big risk--might get dragged in drunk most nights or in the case of one girl I dealt with, post a video of herself peeing on our main street on New Year's Eve. We need to know something about the women we pledge! No one wants their charter jerked or even penalized because of something a girl did on her own.

I'm glad she pledged!

I agree with the concern of the current state of getting recs. I don't disagree with having alumnae/collegian provide great insight on a potential member. To me, the value of a rec is lost when a member HAS to get them (and saying 2 is better than 1, etc.)

How are recs used by chapter members? Ideally, they would all be read and utilized as part of the process. Can a rec that comes in at the 11th hour truly be useful if you are inundated with tons of them at the same time and recruitment is about to start?

Are recs used as part of the selection process. For example is it just a box that is checked that member met that requirement (a check for 1, another check for 2, etc.) Is is utilized as bonus "points", again, not taking into account what information is provided, just that a PNM fulfilled that obligation.

I say these things not to downplay recs, but to look at their value. If I am writing a rec for my friends daughter that I have known since birth and I think she is fabulous and would be such a great addition to a chapter and that rec is of equal value to a rec that was written by someone who really didn't know their PNM, just doing it because they need it...where is the value in my rec. If all members "have" to have a rec for some groups (and in some cases multiple recs), what value is it bringing to the process?

Also, some groups may not have options to note concerns about a PNM, some do, but some don't. Or, what if a rec was done and it was to share concerns but the chapter didn't properly review and then gave positive credit to the PNM for obtaining a rec?

Long story short...I believe there is value to alumnae and active collegians being able to provide input on a PNM they know (not just 30 minutes so she can get a rec), but somehow, we need a better system that puts the appropriate value upon that information vs. it just being a box that is checked off so that a member can proceed with the recruitment process.

You forget that we are still seeking recs for girls who don't have them! Plenty of girls pledge a sorority for which they think they don't have a rec, but they do.

By the way, this is how we Southerners find recs for people we don't know!
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1677498515738768

But again, the question is: then what's the point?

If the PNM didn't get a rec herself and still received a bid - and she had an "unknown" rec written for her - it seems like the checking of a checkbox KiteChick described above.

Does that really add any value, or is it a simple "The chapter likes this girl, a rec is required, so here it is!"?

It's not an unknown. It's a rec by someone, usually from her hometown or with a connection there, who will check her out with, say, a team coach, a friend who goes to church or dance class with her, a teacher at her school.
Check that video. It's humorous, it's exactly how we do it!

The Southern grandma video was pretty funny!

1) This is definitely possible in a smaller town, but harder in a larger city. Sure, this way could dig up more dirt for girls from smaller towns/cities, but not every community is tight-knit enough for this to be feasible without a ton of digging.

I’m Jewish, and I could probably find out something about a PNM in my city using “Jewish geography,” but I could see it taking a lot of legwork depending on what denomination & congregation the PNM is part of. And of course, I’d be helped by the fact that Jews are a much smaller group compared to other cultural or religious groups. Not all Christians know each other. Not all people of the same culture know each other. Maybe the alum chapter in my city simply doesn’t have a connection to the PNM’s teacher’s sister-in-law’s realtor (random example).

Is there any issue in anyone’s mind that this type of process would likely be more feasible in smaller towns and cities? Or might be less feasible for PNMs who might not be part of tight-knit communities for whatever reason or may have moved around a number of times?

And at what point is the cost of effort expended too much compared to the bits of information gleaned? Is there such a point or is it always worth it?

Is there a point at which the alumnae may cold call people from organizations on the PNM’s resume?

I haven’t been personally involved in this type of effort, since I’ve only written recs when contacted or connected with a PNM through someone. So I’m honestly wondering.

2) If you’re already going to someone else to discuss details to put in a recommendation, why not cut out the middle man (sorority alumna) and simply get the recommendation from the source(s)? The PNM can coordinate that.

It’s even possible for the sorority to come up with some sort of standardized letter of recommendation. This looks more like a specific questionnaire within the rec form that asks for quantitative evaluation of specific attributes of the PNM. For example: “Compared to their peers what %ile would you rank this student on leadership, responsibility, special talents, etc.”

I know many are opposed to the suggestion that a non-alumna may be fit to write a sorority rec, but I honestly don’t see an advantage in forcing an alumna rec for someone who doesn’t have alumnae connections if the alumna asks their teacher, coach, etc. That only reinforces to me that these are reliable people to get this info from, so why not make the process easier on the PNM without connections (and the alumnae who have to ask around) by just getting the letters directly from those people?

Even if this suggestion were taken, it wouldn’t have to be an all or nothing. An alumna could compile the info with regard to any secret sorority-specific info. The alumna would have the contact info of the recommender so that they could easily call them for a chat.

Small town girl here (southern) I had no problem finding recs because all the ladies my mother was in clubs with, or who drove the kindergarten car pool when I was in kindergarten, or taught me in school or Sunday school, or were our neighbors, or whose kids I grew up with, stepped forward to write one for me. So really, a small town girl may even have a greater chance of finding a rec because the networking is easier.

It's surprising the number of PNMs who tell me they never thought to ask teachers! They all went to college. if they aren't Greek they probably know someone who is.

At 2min 51 seconds in the video: Is SuperGrandma wearing a Zeta Tau Alpha badge as a ring?

To me it looks like a round clear stone in a bezel setting surrounded by a halo and with a gap between the halo and the centerstone.

I've got to get a bigger screen! Thanks.

Video is funny! :D

Her mother and I got her 8 of 17 recs for the houses. If they found something else, I guess all the better, but it sort of defeats the purpose of the rec if you ask me. I'll stand by my "recs = exclusivity" rant for awhile. But I'm just a northeast bitch, bless my heart ;)

Saw this posted on Reddit by someone who self-identifies as an Alpha Phi. I understand if it's too private to confirm since it does fall under membership selection, but I would be interested to know if this is true.

It sounds like a good change for inclusivity, but I'm also a northeast bitch sitting with shadokat. ;)