For some groups, it's national policy to have a rec on every PNM pledged. So for them, it may be just checking a box but not checking could get you sanctions by your organization. What do you do about those groups?

My chapter's recruitment already takes 10 days from move in to Bid Day. Rec letters help us to take a chance on an out of state girl or someone that no one knows ahead of time. Otherwise - I think our alternative would be to only take girls that are legacies or those with whom the chapter women have a prior relationship. I cant think of how else to do some prescreening on 1200-1400 women.
The other chapter I was at - recruiment was later, in October, and only 800 women went through, but there was a MUCH higher recruitment drop out rate.

At the end of the day - given the choice of two groups that are both great at the university, isn't it better to have alum connections to go home to? If you really are OOS and cant find a soul around to write a note about you, wouldnt it be better to go with the group that is established in your area? Presumably, that likes you enough to help get your foot in the door?

Not having rec letters for every chapter wont prevent you from getting a bid, it just means you might not get as many invites in the early rounds.
Again, you only need one

A journey begins with one step. Perhaps you can begin by lobbying your sorority to not allow alumnae to write recommendations.

The economies of scale are just not going to let this happen. There are far too many PNMs at these schools and recruitment already runs a week - and before school starts in many cases. How do you convince the PNMs to go two weeks ahead of school start? How do you get the members and alums there 3 weeks before school starts? How do you fund the cost of these events? The longer the party the more "whatever" you need to put them on - not only in terms of hard costs (running the a/s longer, more food,etc) but manpower. It's hard enough to get a sufficient number of alums to take vacation from work to come staff a week of work week before recruitment and recruitment week itself. I just cannot imagine what adding time to rounds at Alabama would precipitate. The scope already boggles the mind - and taxes the body.

What you said, Titchou. It's very difficult here at Univeristy of Arizona - the actives have to return the first few days of August (IMO the worst month of the year here, we're sick of the heat, and the summer thunderstorms, it's when everyone heads to San Diego if possible). That really cuts into their summer internships, work, etc. And many alumnae are out of town for the summer.

I also think recs benefit the unknown out of state PNM the most. It's more than a "check mark" for them.

I always wonder this too. It would be really sad to join a house that was strong in a region and a great fit for you. You get to have a great college experience then graduate and go home to be the only ABC within a zillion miles. One of my own real sisters is going to be in about the same situation.

I think it would be a great opportunity (if she did, in fact, go back home as many don't) to get her group known in that community and maybe add to their growth. Look at the upside!

Things can change, too. When I moved here, we had no collegiate chapters in the state, and our 1 alumnae chapter had about 6 regular members - all but one above the age of 70. 15 years later we have 3 collegiate chapters in state (2 that are very large) and one huge one just across the border with a lot of local girls. We're now one of the bigger groups here.

So true, irishpipes. 15 years ago we only had 2 chapters in state. Now we have 5 (2 very large and at the 2 big state schools). 20 years ao we only about 200 alums in town. Now we have 725!

For the most part, those chapters are smaller. For the most part, those rushes (as in number of girls rushing) are smaller. Quite often, those chapters are at schools where rush is deferred to second semester freshman or even first semester sophomore year.

It's a lot easier for chapters with 60 girls to get to know the total 400 girls rushing than it is for chapters with 400 girls to get to know the total 2000 girls rushing. I'm sure that when girls from SEC chapters become traveling consultants and see how a smaller rush works, they say "God, I wish we could have had this much one on one time with rushees." But unless you want to do as Titchou said and drag rush out for weeks upon weeks - and remember that 3 weeks of SEC or Texas rush is =/= 3 weeks of rush at a small private school - I can't think what would be a better way to screen people.

Is there some element of the alums wanting to have a say in who is chosen for membership? Yes, I'm sure. But a thread of that probably runs through EVERY chapter, no matter the size/campus/organization - and no matter whether recs are commonly used or not, whether they have to be obtained before rush to avoid cuts or afterwards when the chapter knows who they want and obtains the recs for the rushees themselves.

Not exactly the same thing, Titchou. I know you guys had some super gungho alums in Birmingham to make that work. :)

(Plus they probably had more than a little help from Florida, Texas, and Mississippi?)

WEll, we did but for a while there ( a couple of years) we had no chapters in the state. So all the new alums had to move in from somewhere else...or have gone to school OOS. Amazing what a couple of chapters can do for you!

Yes, and a small group of alumnae can make a huge difference. When AOII colonized at Oklahoma, we had almost zero local alumnae (not exaggerating). There really weren't enough to fully staff an advisory board at a chapter so large. But a small group of extremely dedicated women pulled it off until the alumnae ranks grew, which didn't take long. I credit the chapter at OU with the successful colonizations at Arkansas and Oklahoma State, so a few "stranded" alumnae can make a big difference to a geographical area.

It's not the recs per se I'm opposed to, it's the MANDATORY part. A girl should be able to get through without them and certainly without 2 or 3 all saying the same thing.

I think recs should be reserved for alumnae who personally know the girls involved. I see this resulting in a "bonus" instead of the lack thereof being a punishment.

When my kids were in high school, I knew most of the other kids. But 10 years later, I don't know them. However, I do know their parents and their grandparents. I know people who know them.
Relying on trusted friends and contacts, I think I can write a pretty accurate rec even without personally knowing the girl.
And...there's always a perfect angel in high school who morphs into a college devil. A rec is just a recommendation, not an accurate prediction of what will happen.
As I ask alumnae when I'm searching for someone to recommend a PNM from their community, "How would you feel if you saw this girl at your local mall wearing our letters?"
I do agree that one rec should be enough.

I think we get that you don't like this process. What are you doing about it? Are you in talks with your national Council or VP Recruitment/Membership, lobbying to have it changed within your group? Talking with your local campus reps about it? Are you being a vehicle for change? Or are you going to just keep telling us - who have no control over this - that you don't like it?

Honestly - a good rec letter system has been almost as good as RFM for getting women that are first generation Greeks or first generation college students a home in the system.

Hey - its how y'all got me!

We only know how our respective sororities use recs during membership selection. To start pointing fingers at people and ask what they are doing about it within their organization is not helpful to the conversation.

You're right. I know that there is NOTHING I'm going to be able to do to change the rush process at those schools. But I also know that in a discussion of why some schools require them and others don't when the results are the exact same, it bears repeating that there is NO valid reason to require all the man hours it takes to get this herculean task solved. Obviously it will be done the long way from here to eternity because it fits the culture, but don't confuse that with being a GOOD system.

It wasn't my intention to point fingers, so to speak. It just seemed odd that she kept stating the same thing over and over. I just wondered if she had ever talked with an official in her group about it.

I really find all this chatter about recs sort of odd. Many social organizations require recommendations for membership such as country clubs, mens clubs in NYC, some Mardi Gras Krewes, the Boston Club in NOLA, etc. It isn't a foreign concept. And I would venture to guess that many of our founders thought it was a good idea too - hence the requirement today. It was definitely a requirement of Anna, Eva and Mary for us.

I guess that is part of what I am questioning -- this appeal to antiquity.

Little, if anything, about formal recruitment now would be similar to joining a sorority 140 years ago. A personal recommendation likely meant something different then. Certainly the recommendation system in the history of elite clubs has been used as often to exclude people as it has to include others -- and are we really trying to emulate exclusive men's clubs? Think of how legacy status alone has changed over the years in clubs and in GLOs.

A recommendation based on knowing a PNM’s grandmother, for instance, puts us back to “she’s from a nice family.” It really isn’t a personal recommendation based on knowledge of the PNM.

RFM would not exist if no one questioned the status quo. Pre-RFM, the stronger recruiting chapters at Bama dominated, while the weaker chapters struggled – some were forced to close. It was difficult (if not impossible) for a colonizing chapter to be successful.

RFM helps put chapters on a more equal footing. I’m just wondering if a different perspective on our current rec system might do the same for PNMs (and reduce a lot of paper for the chapters too).

I realize that there must be some basis for retaining and releasing PNMs (and due to the numbers, it will not be additional time during rounds). Would a detailed resume submitted online serve this purpose? Instead of mountains of paper in the form of triplicate resumes on PNMs (arranged in a thousand different formats), every chapter would receive the information on every PNM organized in the same format (sort of like scholarship resumes are submitted to colleges – even med schools and other post-graduate professional programs use an online centralized app process). Some online recruitment registrations already ask for some of this info. A transcript could also be submitted for verification of grades, and a photo could be uploaded as well.

Alums who wish to write a personal letter for a special PNM they know could still do so. I feel like this type of letter might be more likely to actually reflect personal knowledge of the PNM (would be difficult to write otherwise), and that these would be far fewer in number. How these are treated, beyond drawing attention to the alum’s input, would be determined by the chapter.

This thread now seems like, oh, I dunno:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ad-horse11.jpg

LOL indeed

Do you mean submitted to the school's Panhel or submitted to the sorority's HQ?

Most schools around here and all the large schools (USC, Texas, etc) all have online registration that includes the resume information. We get that from the CPH. That's not the main purpose of a rec. You can find that in the HS annual.4

To the school's Panhellenic -- just like recruitment registration. When my dd registered for recruitment, some of this information was requested, though limited in scope. Just looking around at various sites – I see SMU’s page lists info for PNMs to include (and instructs to upload a photo as well):
https://smu.mycampusdirector.com/register/

Back in the bad ol’ days, the only way a chapter would have these details on a girl might be from a recommendation of an alum who knew her well. If this is no longer (potentially) necessary, then the only purpose remaining would be the check in the box recommending the PNM for membership (which as someone mentioned earlier in the thread -- might be from the PNM’s mom’s dentist’s wife’s aunt or something). And does this result in a “better” pledge class at Big Southern U than at Northern State where this step is not customary?

Alums could still recommend a PNM for membership -- as far as I know, there is nothing to prevent an alum from sending a letter of support for any PNM she is passionate about (whether the PNM requests a rec or not). This would require a lot less paper to manage on everyone’s part – and it might help confine the letters to PNMs who the alum actually knows well.

And similarly, if so inclined, alums can track and ***warn*** chapters of Jezebels and felons -- I don’t really see any need to complete a rec form for that:
Personally, I just wouldn’t feel right about agreeing to write recs for PNMs I then threw under the rush bus, unless there was a very compelling reason to do so. I guess girls should remember that when an alum offers or agrees to write them a recommendation, it may not be because the alum plans to write a positive recommendation.

I've written them before. Girls with really poor GPAs. I've given the reasons for the poor performance, but I didn't recommend them for membership. I'm not the last word so the chapter can do what they will with the information I provide. I didn't find it compelling to excuse the grade issue, but with a relationship made during recruitment, that information may be enough to get the woman a pass. Honestly, that's what my rec is for anyway, to give my chapter information they can use when making a decision. One thing I was taught a long time ago was to ask "Can you write me a GOOD recommendation?" not just "Can you write me a recommendation?"

One, I say to PNMs with bad grades: "you know, I'm going to have to be honest about your grades." It may not be fun to have to say but I feel I owe it to them to be honest with them.

Two, no PNM who was a "no" ever asked me for a rec. I have only done about 3 or 4 and I don't think any of them knew or thought about whether I am in a sorority.

I'm glad that the 3 no-recs I've written over the years never asked me for a rec. All 3 knew better than to do that since they realized I knew what all they had done. Can you imagine being asked to write one by some really awful kid?

When you live out of the rec bubble region, I think it's more common to run into this. I was honest about it, and asked for an explanation. It also gave me an opportunity to discuss the probable outcome of recruitment. Northern girl heading to SEC with bad grades equals bad result. :/

Excellent way to handle, AOII_Angel.

I think giving the chapter information regarding extenuating circumstances that may have negatively influenced the GPA is helpful to the chapter (a PNM might even receive some accommodations from the school for a learning disability). I would imagine, however, that a no rec would likely eliminate the PNM from consideration (assuming the chapter needs a recommendation for membership).

Otherwise, the GPA and (final) official transcript would be have been submitted to the school for use in verification anyway, and the chapters can use these to make decisions about grades.

I do agree that it is a good idea for girls to understand the obstacle that a poor GPA may present during recruitment. This wouldn’t be the same as sending a *warning* rec on a girl that one heard is not “morally acceptable,” for instance. I doubt an alum would want to explain that to a PNM who asked for a recommendation.

I agree about the warning rec. I don't usually know any dirt about girls of that age group to be able to send that type of rec. AOII doesn't require recs for membership, however, a no-rec with specific amoral specifics would be a kiss of death, I'm quite sure. I know we've had this discussion before about whether or not to no-rec. IMHO, if I for certain knew information that I morally felt disqualified a woman from membership, I would no-rec someone in a heartbeat. My loyalty is to AOII. I, of course, have really liberal views, so you'd have had to kill someone to shock me (not really that bad, but you get the picture.)

I've never seen a no-rec, but I did see one that was completely honest. It basically said that the girl was shy at first but once she warmed up she was great. It was refreshing to see one that was honest rather than "she is the best thing since sliced bread!".

I think that is a good example of useful input from an alum who knows the PNM well -- it might help a great candidate who leans to the quiet side avoid being overlooked.

That's a great rec and would be very helpful for a introverted girl who deserves to find sisterhood.

What about a girl who you know is kind of a drama queen, always stirring things up among her close friends?

I don't know, Dee. I figure those kinds of women can benefit from membership. drama queens are in every chapter, but some of these women are turned around by college.

I would prefer not to have the drama queens myself. They usually escalate in some way in my experience