Can a rec hurt you?
 

I start rush in two weeks and was lucky enough to know a few wonderful greek women well enough that they were able to write me rec letters. At my campus, UW-Madison, there are eleven sororities and I have recs to five. I was told through the greek gossip chain, that if I have rec's to some houses but not to others, the houses I lack a rec for won't even consider me, because I've shown a preferance to another house. Is this true? I hope you knowlegable women can clear this up for me. I thought rec letters just gave me a little push at the houses I had them for, not a punishment at those I didn't.
Thanks so much

Gosh, as far as I know that's absolutely not true. We used to get a photocopy of your rush information from Panhell that basically just told us if you were a legacy, a copy of a picture if provided and a rec if provided. Given the number of rushee's coming through that was a lot to deal with. We had neither the time nor the will to worry about who didn't have recs for us but had them for several other houses.

Anyway, good luck. I'm sure you'll do great. Make sure to keep up posted on how things go!!! :D

Unless the chapters are gossipy, there's no way for one chapter to know what rushees another chapter got a rec for.

A rec is a plus for the chapters you have them for. Depending on the school, it can be a huge negative to not have one. I say get recs for the ones that you can and just have faith that if a chapter truly wants you, not having one won't matter.

Sorry if this posts twice, I am new to the forum, but i have a friend who is a pi phi there and I've never heard anything about that from here. She said rush was really fun and laid back compared to a lot of campuses...and I've heard great things about Greek life at Madison! (I go to a school about an hour from there)

Good luck!
Kathleen

We never discussed recruitment matters with other chapters AT ALL... and no chapters knew who had recs. for who.

it doesn't necessarily work that way
 

At my school, we know who has a rec for our own house. We know where a rushee is a legacy, including knowing if she is a legacy to any of our competing sororities. But we don't know whether or not she has recs at competing sororities. Like someone said above, the only way we'd know that is if we heard it from a member of another house. Panhel certainly doesn't hand out a list saying which rushees have recs to which houses.

We didn't necessarily know if a girl had a rec in at another sorority, however, many times a PNM would have a list of "references" listed at the end of her resume/activities list and it would list the references as, EX:

Jane Doe
15 Maple St.
Nowhere, USA
Delta Gamma

So we would assume that if she had certain sororities represented in her "references" that those women would have sent in a rec for them...

If the rec people were people who we knew already and were strong local alums or very recent alums who were related to them, etc. it would definitely raise awareness as to where that PNM might be leaning, but our job was to try to get them to love us no matter who they knew from other sororities...Does that make sense? I would say we rushed people even HARDER when they had connections to another group...it can make you sort of more desirable as a PNM...but definitely try to get recs for the other groups if possible...just don't worry if you can't unless your school's rush is the type where houses will cut for not having a rec (this is a mostly southern thing). And remember, technically, it is the sorority's responsibility to secure recs...

This is an interesting article from the AOII magazine about legacies....
go here and make sure that you jump to page 4...
http://www.alphaomicronpi.org/PDF%20...ecruitment.pdf

I thought this excerpt was rather interesting and will hopefully encourage discussion...
"The daughter of one of these co-workers recently participated in formal recruitment at a major university here in Texas. My co-worker had been Chapter President of another NPC group when she was in college. Yet, she encouraged her daughter not to list her sorority affiliation on the recuritment application. When I asked my friend why she had done this, she told me that she did not want her daughter to be penalized by her sorority affiliation. This puzzled me so we discussed this further. It seems that my friend’s sorority was not one of the “stronger” groups on
the campus her daughter chose to attend.

She didn’t want her daughter to feel obligated to join this group if it weren’t her first choice and at the same time she didn’t want
the other groups to judge her daughter on her own sorority affiliation. It appears that questions and concerns regarding legacy recruitment are not unique to AOII -- the alumnae of the other groups I am familiar with hold the same discussions.

Thanks Ladies,
these contributions put my mind at ease. My rec's should give me a little boost at a few sororities, and not matter to the others. I shouldn't need recs to all the houses because our greek system is big but not huge. I may try to conntact some more greek women I know and get a few more recs, if I can. It just fells strange asking people I don't know that well. Mostly now all Iam worrying about is what to wear and how to act "calm and collected," while I will be SO nervous and excited during Rush! It's good to hear Madison's Rush is laid back, I'll be unptight as it is.
thanks again

I don't have anything new to offer on the topic, but I just wanted to tell you -- good luck with rush!! I hope you'll tell us all about it. Madison is such an awesome town, and I'm sure you will have a blast! :)

Oh, if anyone is wondering, I just checked the web page and UW -- Madison has the following NPC sororities:

Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Phi
Chi Omega
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Gamma
Gamma Phi Beta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Pi Beta Phi
Sigma Delta Tau

It's really a GOOD thing I'm not an active on a campus with a competative Greek System. I would be HORRIBLE. Now that I have noted my uselessness and lack of open mindedness, I'll explain in light of CutiePie's post.


When certain chapters are considered strong, and I see a legacy. I mentally file her in that chapter-dismiss, and move on to greener pastures. There are PLENTY of wonderful young ladies in a competative envionment. Of course she would be "courted"
in the same manner as everyone else, but I would think long and hard, VERY hard before I would chose her over someone unaffiliated. On the OTHER hand, a legacy to a chapter as described in the post-It seems that my friend’s sorority was not one of the “stronger” groups on the campus her daughter chose to attend. would be no holds barred if I felt certain, (as much as that is possible) the girl had no
intense feeling of obligation to her Mom's sorority. So, I personally would give that girl a long hard look compared o the other one. Please remember I did state it's a good thing I'm not an active!

A side note: as a UW-Madison student and a PNM (rushing this fall!), I've spoken to a couple people about it and all agree that recommendations are not terribly important at the UW. Of course, they can definitely help by making you stand out and look prepared, but I wouldn't worry too much about the ones you don't have recs for, as everyone has told me that most girls going through rush don't have them. I think that a lot of the girls who rush at Madison decide to go through on a whim, rather than as a result of something they've been planning for their whole lives, and many of them don't have any other Greeks in their families -- they're the first. So because of that, most of them don't even know that recommendations are suggested, let alone how to go about getting them.

It's great that you're so well prepared though -- as the posts in this thread have shown, it can only help you when you're going through recruitment.

JAM, I want to make sure I understand what your saying!
 

Do you mean that the legacy of the strong chapter you'd still rush hard but think hard about putting her first because, chances are, she'll go to her mom's house? And the leg to the weak chapter you'd rush hard and actually rank her higher than the leg of the strong chapter?

If that's what your saying, I felt the exact same way when I was a collegiate. I have plenty of sisters where we'd find out they're a leg to certain houses and just think !@$% We'd be damn lucky if she pref'd us let alone bid match! But as I said, they're my sisters. So the Greek Rush gods shined on us those nights. ;)

SoCalGirl-Do you mean that the legacy of the strong chapter you'd still rush hard but think hard about putting her first because, chances are, she'll go to her mom's house? And the leg to the weak chapter you'd rush hard and actually rank her higher than the leg of the strong chapter?

Yes, exactly! For example, prior to this fall recruitment, in NORMAL CONVERSATION, several girls let it be known who they were legacies to.
Any one who is attentive to such a conversation should be able to tell if she has made up her mind (heart).This is where having a sister paying attention to their own back yard comes in handy. Carry her if she has a "tribe" of desireable followers, but when it gets to the point of hard decisions, I would want her ranked below every rushee that examplifed my chapter's standards and had not openly declared a preference.

I think we lose the meaning of that word because we have shortened it to PREF. If we think about it, PREFERENCE, I think we should show preference to those who are open and focus our recruitment efforts where it can make a difference. There is significance to who you keep. Sometimes there can be significance to who you release. Just an "old ladies" opinion.

I think what you are saying justamom is that you risk "hanging" your bid list by putting a leg to another strong sorority on your first list...right?

If you mean "hanging" in the sense of screwing it up, yes.

I say this in regard to competition. Lets take a campus that has anywhere from 6 like University of Houston, my old Alma Mater, and any one of the HUGE systems with 17 or more. One thing EVERY girl USUALLY knows is if she is a legacy or not.

At UH, everyone went after the same girls. The Greek system wasn't all that strong and the girls going through didn't have that "rush savvy" that many possess in a more competitive environment. So many people say, "Our recruitment numbers are low." PERCENTAGE wise, the motives for joining a GLO may differ at a school like UH than UGa but you STILL will have those that have very specific reasons and desires to join a particular GLO. However, I believe you have MORE girls (percentage wise) who haven't made up their minds that they MUST be an ABC in a less competitive environment.

Every campus has a few sororities that have a high retention rate
and a few that may not make quota. You also have the middle ground. If there is a girl who has the qualities EVERY sorority HIGHLY desires, it would seem reasonable that she will be invited to return to every party. This is where I would make an honest assessment of the true potential my chapter would have pledging this woman. This has nothing to do with the sisterhood or how the members value my chapter. It has everything to do with how this PNM values my chapter. If the PNM is a legacy to a chapter that she would value more, do you REALLY want to rank her above the girl who would love being in YOUR chapter.

I understand that we all want great girls to attend our parties-it makes us look good. However, when it gets to the point of inviting her to our Preferential Party, I would release her unless I was as certain as certain can be she was actually considering my chapter and not merely assuring herself of the maximum number of parties for each round. Sometimes you need to be brutally honest with yourself before you can see how to improve the situation. Filling your Pref parties with girls who you KNOW will end up in another chapter is wasting TIME and SPACE and unless things have changed, you may also be wasting your best rushers.

I honestly believe that good chapters make bad mistakes when they rank a highly desirable legacy over any number of great girls who are released when retention numbers come into play. Go for the real gold, not fools gold.