Recommendations
 

Hi! My daughter will be going through a tough sorority recruitment next fall. She will be OOS at a large flagship university east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon line.

We live in a neck of the woods.

We have scoured our family contacts and colleagues nationally. So far, we have all but three of 11-18 chapter recommendations covered. Besides a few, most will be recommedations based upon family or other provided information.

The question we have at this point is where do we draw the line on the number of recommendations provided to a particular chapter? For instance, we have almost seven or eight people who have offered to review her resume and transcript for recommendation for XYZ.

Should we limit the number of recommendations to an individual chapter to, say, three? These ladies are far away in other states and/or countries and it seems embarrassing to ask any of them to write a personal letter of support that states that my daughter is "sooooo greatttt".


Thanks in advance. If we had not been pointed to this site....it would not have been good at all.

Copterdad

QFP

Yes, 3 would do it.

Three recommendations per chapter should be sufficient and i think that one really good recommendation and 1 or 2 letters of support are even better. Most often recommendation forms offer only small spaces for the recommender to expand on the pnms accomplishments and attributes and numerous recommendations for the same person will say the same thing(as long as the senders all see the pnm in the same light). While the recommendation form is the official form of the sorority, an accompanying letter of support can fill in the blanks and let the chapter truly see what contributions the pnm might be able to make to the chapter and provide the chapter with a more personal preview of the pnm they will meet during formal recruitment.

For those women who have offered to write a recommendation, but whose sorority will already be receiving the desired amount for your daughter, you might graciously tell them that she already has x number of recommendations to their sorority, however, she still needs recommendations to abc, def and gh sororities and they could help her out by passing on her information packet to any friends they have who are members of those sororities. Most sorority women are happy to help in this way.

Thanks for the responses! And the QFP! That puts us in, um, GC posterity!! :)

C

Ha!

This cracked me up. Get yourself a beer, dad. (You will need a few to get through this fun time in your daughter's life.)

Be sure to stick around, copterdad. You are funny and we will need your levity here in a few months.

Best of luck to your daughter.

I agree that 3 or 4 recs is probably a sufficient number BUT if someone else offers, I wouldn't turn them away. Here's why: Sometimes women say they are going to write a rec, and they don't (forgot, wrote it too late, etc). As the pnm (or parent of one) you have no idea that happened. Rush rolls around and your recs are not there.
I have always felt that it is better to accept everyone's offer than to turn someone down.

Let me clarify that I am not talking about beating the bushes for gazillions of recs. I am talking about an instance where an alum offers to write your daughter a rec because she has learned that daughter is going through rush and would love to help. In my opinion, you don't turn these women down - especially in the South, and especially with an OOS pnm.

I agree that around 3 recs is generally considered standard. However, while gee_ees does make a good point about not turning down recs, I urge you, at least in the case of the seven or eight for one sorority, to draw a line somewhere. If a chapter gets more than, say, 5 recs for one girl, it starts to look a bit odd...

You got that right!

Whoever coined the phrase, "it's all Greek to me", must have lived down the road from us.

If I ever asked a guy around here if his wife was a "Soror" I swear I'd get punched in the mouth.

Sometimes I wake up in another time and find myself asking some unknown woman, "are you now or have you ever been a...?"


But, hey, today I got a new recommender for a chapter we had no clue where to find. My eye doctor is an EFG!:D

C

I get it. My M-N-L, bless her heart, sent us a list of eight women with a note that she would have a couple of more names, ALL ABC! I told my wife to please call her and stop the madness!

C

I agree with the person that said, "QFP."

and this is why we keep saying ask everyone you know .. you never know who might be able to help ..
hang in there Copter Dad .. and good luck to your daughter

I am sure we have probably discussed this elsewhere, but at some of the SEC competitive schools, when lots of personal knowledge recs(written by an alum who knows the girl personally!) come in for a girl, the actives don't think it is odd...They think, "Wow, the alumnae are certainly interested in this girl. We had better get to know her."

Hey, open apology. I didn't mean to offend you, Prettyface08, or any member here. Soror is just not a word used around here and I was just playing.

However, one shouldn't embellish or otherwise change any post after pressing the quote button, aside from snipping.

C

A stack of "personal knowledge" recs and letters of support is very different than a stack of "general interest but I don't know this PNM personally" recs.

^^^totally agree

OK, here's what I believe will work. Where she has more than several recommendation writers, she will make personal contact with the women closest to her (family, close friends, etc.) and send the information packet with a note.

Then, for the others who have offered to help, a brief note explaining that she has the necessary formal recommendations, but if the reviewer sees something in the resume that she feels will benefit the sorority it would be a pleasure to have her write a short note of support to the chapter and send it to the chapter in the supplied envelope.

Of course, all of the women get personal thank you notes now and later.

Even though my wife and I, and daughter, don't know some of these people, we have close family and friends that do know them, and it means a lot to them (and us) that their friends came through for them to help.

Oh, and Happy Easter this weekend, and I hope Passover has gone well too!


Thanks!

Excellent plan, CopterDad. Keep us posted this fall.

sounds like a great plan. and as titchou asked, please keep us posted.