Too cool! I do think PNM really need to understand it is life long membership - should they choose to embrace it.

Back on topic/
I just don't understand why some school's Panhellenic that have a pretty competitive rush make it sound like references are completely not needed. Obviously some schools, like Alabama, do a much better job an realistically posting what is Panhellenic required and what is individual chapters may require.

It's kind of like back in my day - we had deferred rush - so only college grades count. And the Panhellenic threshold to go through rush was something ridiculously low. Like a 1.75 or a 2.0. But a couple of the sororities had their thresholds set in the 2.75 range. For us specifically - there was one rush where more than 1/2 the girls were below our threshold and absolutely could not be pledged. At least now - most literature shows some sororities having higher grade requirements than the Panhellenic minimum. And I think I saw that Alabama had a chart that showed how many invites you are likely to get based on GPA alone. To me that is eye opening to a lot of PNMs who don't understand how grades really do impact their options.

It’s a misguided attempt to make the rush process seem more egalitarian and class free. Same with telling people to dress more casually than what is acceptable. Of course it completely backfires because only those “in the know” get the recs and the right outfits, and the old girl network perpetuates.

I mean you can wish for something to be a certain way until the cows come home, but by denying reality, you hurt people, not help them.

That's just straight BS... of course they can and do affect the recruitment process! How can Panhellenic even say that when they are not privy to what goes on behind closed doors in each chapter?

And this confuses me... my sorority would not want it submitted through a university panhellenic form, they want it submitted through our national website on our form. Am I misunderstanding what this is saying?

And frankly any school that forced this to be true would probably be abandoned by the NPC pretty quickly.

You understand correctly. While most don't have their own form and would never admit to helping in that way, any school will forward mail addressed to a specific group. So they wouldn't know what was in the envelope either. And besides, it is true that no school requires recs...only groups.....

My daughter went through at South Carolina last year. I totally agree with 33girl in that "those in the know" know to disregard any "recs are not needed" wording from the school's Greek Life page, and also know what to wear, etc. Really does a disservice to those girls coming from non-Greek families or are otherwise clueless about the process. We can keep shouting from the rooftops that RECS MATTER but you'll always have people pointing at the Shiny Brochures that say they do not...lots of debate about this on other forums, as I'm sure many of you know.

I'm actually pretty angry at NPC for pretending that recs don't matter and thus handicapping so many PMs out there. Why can't they just at least say they could be helpful? I hear the verbiage, "demanding recs is so elitist" but it's reality.
By telling the truth, they're actually making it more fair for everyone.

I have run into a few ladies who have assumed they didn't need them because of the wording on the Panhellenic page, found out otherwise, and are now panicking to get things together. It does such a huge disservice to them, so I totally agree AnchorAlumna. I go out of my way to help ladies in this situation - almost all are from places where recs wouldn't be common, and it's likely harder to find Greek contacts, so they are already behind the eight ball.