How early is TOO early?
 

I'll be attending The University of Alabama next fall and cannot wait for recruitment in August. I was wondering though, when it is a good time to start sending in recs? I have some of alumnae ready to write them but I didn't know if earlier was better?

On here I've read that July is considered the rec rush but I'm so anxious I'd love to be able to send them as soon as it's appropriate! Haha

Does anyone know the time frame that the houses would first start to receive reccomendations?

Thank you!
Roll Tide :)

It's definitely not too early to start gathering your Rec ladies. If you don't know someone from each sorority that could take awhile. I think spring is when the recs start floating into the SEC schools, and summer for the rest of the country.

The other thing you can/should be doing right now is preparing your resume so that your rec ladies know what to say about you. And don't let your grades/involvement/leadership/reputation slide just because you've already gotten accepted into Bama.

Congratulations and good luck!

No, it's not too early to line up Recs for Bama. Yes, it's too early to actually send them to the chapters. The typical time frame for Recs to start arriving is in May.

Some chapters might not have even installed their new officers for the coming year yet. You would hate to have your Rec get lost or not passed on to the new officer in charge of Recs.

Far more importantly though, chapters want your final cummulative HS GPA. Obviously that's not going to be known and an official transcript available until after your graduation.

Instead I suggest you have your Rec writers email the Recruitment chair of their chapter letting them know about you. This will get you on a chapter's "radar". That will hopefully translate into invitations to the Spring Teas, Panhellenic Preview Weekend get togethers, etc.

Would it be okay to send my final transcript to each house after my writer sends on the reccomendation?

And so far I don't have any Alabama alumni writing me Recs but if they emailed their individual school's chapters would they send my information to Bama?

Haha sorry for such specific questions, thanks again :)

:confused: What? You ask women from each sorority to send recs DIRECTLY to the chapters at Bama. They don't have to be alumnae of the chapters at Bama, but they will send your recs directly to Bama regardless of what chapter they are from.

And BTW, I'll go ahead and tell you, it's alumnae not alumni. A female graduate is an alumna; female graduates are alumnae. A male graduate is an alumnus; male graduates are alumni. Someone else would have posted this so I'll save them the trouble.

I know the actual Recs get sent from alumna* (haha thank you for pointing that out too! :)) to the chapters at Alabama but I was referring to when Zillini suggested I have my Rec writers email Recruitment chairs letting them know about me. I'm not sure if that means the Recruitment chairs AT Alabama or their respective universities?

Yes, the woman should email the recruitment chair for her GLO at Alabama. Why would they send email their respective schools? They won't ever even know who you are.

I think she is referring to Alumnae Panhellenic Chapters or Alumnae Chapters or the Recruitment chairs at the chapters at Bama not other collegiate chapters. You are only planning to go through recruitment at Bama, correct? She was talking about getting you into the system of alumnae Spring Teas, etc. I totally didn't get what you were talking about. Thanks for the clarification.

Yes, only Bama! Haha and thank you! Sending it to Alabama was what made sense but I wasn't sure if she sent it to her own school if they would pass it on or something like that.

In more competitive schools is it wise to have multiple recs? I plan on attending my local Panhellenic recruitment meeting in February. I know I'll learn more when I get there but is that where I will make contacts to get letters of recs written?

2 or maybe 3 for each group at competitive schools PLUS having one of those contact the chapter personally about you.

Do you just ask them to contact a chapter personally?

maybe zillini will be able to come back on and answer you questions about bama. she has first hand knowledge!

Yes. There is nothing wrong with asking "Would you mind contacting (email/phone*) your UA chapter this spring to let them know I will be going through Recruitment in fall and will be attending Panhellenic Preview Weekend?"

It would be helpful if you would provide them with the contact info which you should be able to find the chapters websites. Links to the chapter websites can be found on Panhellenic's website. Some may have a generic Recruitment email address, while others might provide an individual's email address.

*I would advise against having them call the general house phone number. Whoever happens to be by the phone would answer and there is no guarantee the message/info would be passed on to the proper officer.

If your alumnae are from Alabama or are familiar with its Recruitment, they probably know exactly what you are asking for and why. If your alumnae are from other chapters and not familiar with Alabama, then you might need to explain about the Spring Teas, etc.

Okay thank you! I'll have them do that asap!

I have another question regarding recs! Someone even suggested I include awards, activities, achievements, ect. even prior to high school on my resume. Would this be too much?

And is there a specific resume template that sororities perfer to receive? I have one I submitted when I applied to all my schools in the fall but I'm not sure if that's the same kind I would use for this haha

How far prior??

If you were something really impressive at a young age (like state twirling champion when you were 12, just a random example) I can understand that, but anything else...I'm not versed in recs or resumes, but that would just come across to me like you didn't have enough in recent years and needed to "pad" your achievements.

33girl took the words right out of my mouth. Nobody cares that you were student council secretary in the seventh grade. If you played piano at Carnegie Hall at the age of 11, that's something they'd pay attention to.

Just use a standard, straight forward layout. Honestly (and despite what some PNMs seem to think) all chapters are looking for is the info in an easy to read manner. Try to keep it to 1 page, 2 at the most but only if you have a lot of activities or awards. As 33girl said, stick to recent or super important/unique things otherwise it just looks like a PNM is trying to pad it.

This is not the time/place to show your creativity or how much money you can spend on super expensive professional printing and paper. It's not going to earn any brownie points. Plain white paper, plain black ink, and a plain font is all that is needed.

I'm going to go ahead and strongly discourage the two-page resume.

Resumes
 

The scary thing is that I didn't go to a two page resume until I'd been in the computer industry for about 10 years. Sort of begs the question as to which is easier for a woman going to an SEC school: getting into a sorority, or getting the first salaried position after University graduation.

You know how I know an entry-level candidate is going to be a pain in the ass?

I was going to say I FINALLY had to go to a 2 page resume, but seriously, you almost can't name an industry I haven't worked in. I've had friends make a parlor game of guessing jobs I haven't done.

But there is no case where a high school student would need 2 pages. If you have a resume that is top to bottom amazing, you'll leave them wondering what else you have. Include everything (relevant - see above) and be specific, but don't for dog's sake lie about any of it. And if you have to edit, go in order of importance, not date.

And DON'T get cutesy. Legible 12 point font (I prefer Arial, but you can use Times New Roman if you must), 1 inch margins, absolutely no wingdings of any sort.

Is this the correct number for Alabama? I have heard that they are so important.

One might get you thru if it and you are outstanding. 2 is best. 3 is OK. 4 or more is overkill.