totally agree with 33 and little e.

greek life is not utopian or politically correct. pretending that recs. are not required is wrong. i think it is unfair that before recruitment, panhellenics do not spell out in black and white that it is "highly recommended that pnms obtain letters of recommendation from alumnae".

at ultra large recruitments, it is just so easy to cut a girl with no rec., rather than to have someone phone someone in her hometown to see if they know her, and ask them to write a rec. why work that hard, when you already have hundreds of girls to chose from who do have a rec. for your chapter? a pnm would have to be someone pretty special to work that hard for.

jocelyn, i think it is to be pol. correct. i would venture to guess which ones you are speaking of...if at least one of them is one of the ones i am also thinking of, you are so right...if you don't have recs. to most of the sororities on that campus, you will be cut.

But isn't this also true of chapters with different grade requirements and different dues? That's not a reason to pretend to PNM's that the same GPA will get your foot in the door at every house, or that all the houses cost the same. Seems like most schools are pretty straightforward about that info, chapter by chapter.

Yes, and I'm sure there are girls out there who think the most expensive sorority must be the best or the one w/ the highest GPA requirement has the smartest girls. They're wrong, and hopefully there aren't many rushees out there who think that way.

It's kind of apples and oranges though - I am referring to sororities WHO HAVE IT IN THEIR NATIONAL BYLAWS that all pledged members must have a rec.

This issue of whether or not we can say that recs are required was discussed a lot when I was at UGA, and the basic Panhel line was that because Panhel's national position is that it is the responsibility of the chapter to obtain recs, UGA's Panhel cannot say anything different on the site. I am sure that this is the reason that you don't see "You need recs for ABC, DEF, and GHI in order to pledge them" on any other schools' sites.

Some individual sorority chapters strongly suggest that PNMs should get recs prior to recruitment on their sites (I know of one house at UGA and one at LSU that do this, and I am sure there are others), but we can't really say "You need to obtain a rec to come back for Round 2/3/Prefs" in a definitive way if that is "technically" not the policy.

Yes, I know it sucks.

Thanks, that's what I was trying to say. :D

Agreed.

Amending what I said a while back-- what is wrong with a blurb on a school's recruitment materials such as: "While they are not required per NPC bylaws, PNMs at XYZ University are strongly encouraged to submit alumnae letters of recommendation to the alumnae's respective sorority chapters."

ETA: This spells out that you should have recs, but it does state NPC's standpoint on recs. I don't think this is misleading the PNMs.

I believe it is because Panhellenic wants to promote a sense that recruitment is fair and even - that there is no social elitism in Greek life. Plus, if taking a napkin from a rush party is an infraction, I am sure officially requiring a rec would be too. That would be hazing or some other horrible maltreatment of PNMs.

I am with Dani on this one. I do NOT think that the recruitment guides should say that ACB requires a rec and DEF doesn't - PNMs may take that to mean that ABC is more exclusive that DEF. I DO think that the recruitment guides should stop promoting the lie that chapters will get recs for you since it is technically their responsibility. The guidebooks should inform PNMs that although the procurement of recommendations is ultimately the responsibility of the sorority, it is in the PNM's best interests to obtain recommendations for each chapter before recruitment begins.

I don't see this as being any different from informing PNMs on what to wear. Actually, a chapter is more able to overlook a PNM who over or under-dresses for a party than one who does not have a rec when that chapter requires one for membership consideration.

My sisters (biological) frequently made comments like, "we really liked her but she just didn't have a rec and we had to let her go." PNMs need to know this is the case.

When I was a PNM (almost 5 years ago!) and I read the statement in my Recruitment Handbook "It it the responsibility of the individual sororities to obtain a reccomendation for a PNM," I took that statement to mean that if you made it through to the end of recruitment and they wanted to offer you a bid, that they would get a reccomendation. And I thought that maybe the chapter advisor or someone like that would write the rec.

That's just the way I imagined it would be. How naive I was back then. Those sure were innocent times.