I'll pop in again to tell you about one sorority where my d can't find a rec. She's gotten at least one for the rest. So she went to our regional panhellenic website which clearly stated - if you are looking for a rec go to the national site. She went to the national site and found some email addresses and asked for help - she was emailed back to go to the local panhellenic. She's sent out at least 5 different emails and no one will point her to the correct person or place and no one even responds to her - at the national or local level. We decided this particular one just may not be found. She'll keep trying, but she accepts this house may just be knocked off her list after the first night.

I suggest you go look to your national organization websites and pretend you don't know anything about it. Is the information easy to find?

ALL members of Delta Gamma MUST have a sponsor form in order to pledge. She does NOT need to know that she has one - she just has to have one. Yes, there is a place on the paperwork for the name of the person. And yes, we have ways of doing that after the fact.

Is it on the web site? Yes:

"Are Sponsor Forms required for pledging Delta Gamma?

Yes, being endorsed by a member of Delta Gamma is required for pledging and a Delta Gamma Sponsor Form is the preferred form."

Oooohhhh...gotta' correct you on this. Penn State is not Penn. Penn Staters hate that. Penn is the University of Pennsylvania. I'm sure they hate that too. Yeah, it's true about the recruitment. I thought it was the weirdest thing but, cool. Later on in life, I realized that recs were a necessary thing for southern recruitment. It's a complete 180 from what I am used to. Ha!

In this case, where you are down to one organization, I would use social media to your advantage. Have your daughter post (to friends of friends) that she will be going to ABC University this fall and looks forward to participating in recruitment. She has been able to secure recs for all groups except XYZ and would anyone happen to have any contacts in that organization that would be willing to help with a rec.

Once daughter makes original post, I personally** think that it is okay for you to the share the post with your group of friends. That covers a lot more ground, and the reason her post needs to be set to "friends of friends." I have actually seen mom/daughter combos find 12/12 recs this way in less than one hour. I'm not a huge fan of starting out in this manner, but I do think it can be a great way to find those last couple.

**others may disagree with me on mom sharing the post, but I think if daughter makes the post, and the daughter personally contacts whomever responds, that she has demonstrated appropriate involvement and initiative.

Forty years ago at a northern, non-Greek-heavy, technical school, we just wrote the recs ourselves for the women we planned to bid if we didn't have an alumna handy to write one. From what I've read here, that may not be permissible any more (I see lots of you saying a collegiate at another chapter may write one for some orgs).

I didn't know spit about rush at big southern schools when DD went to UTexas. I'm so pleased she chose not to rush; I could not have prepared her. Though I was involved in my alumnae chapter, I presume no one mentioned it to me because they figured I knew ...

If it were my daughter, I would go back to my original rec writers and ask them if they knew a member of ABC who could help. All sorority members have friends in other sororities and know people from work who are in other sororities. They might be able to point you to a person who can help. (And that person will be more local and better able to personalize a rec for your daughter.)

I'd be willing to bet that every group with such a policy (including my own) has at least one chapter out there where the CA or CMA sits down and signs forms en masse right before putting together the bid list.

In fact, DG is one of the best at publicizing this policy; as I recall, they were the first organization on my campus to publicize it as such. But it's still hard when people get a "WTF is a rec?" from an alumna outside of the south.

It would really be nice if national groups both publicized their policies to PNM's AND did a better job of explaining it to alumnae.

THIS! I just talked to a Mom in CT the other day who's daughter is coming down south next year. She knows she needs help/advice, and I told her that she may get some very strange looks from her friends when she starts asking about recs. Since it doesn't happen much up north or where they might have gone to school, they think it's not necessary anywhere.

I SO agree with this! We need to be making it easier, not harder, to find recommendations!

I've done the same thing - warned PNMs that they may have to tell the alumnae they contact that recs are required at Southern schools.

Overall - we need to be better educating our members about the necessity of recs and how to correctly do them for your organization. I think part of the problem is that are usually processed by a committee or a couple of individuals, and most members don't see or hear about them except as a brief mention when you're going over the PNM list.

But if they're just a check-off item for your org and you don't read or use them, change your policies and procedures to eliminate them.

I'm not saying anything to my daughter, but I'm a little worried about some of these rec writers. If they don't get the importance of this, it may not be the best effort. The one she's missing only took in two out of staters last year - so I'm thinking this is not worth having a heart attack over. And funny enough, it's the one with the most elusive website and contact info.

Trust me, she told me she's starting to feel like a stalker now.

So how does she go back and ask them if they sent them in without looking like a micro manager?

You thank them for doing this - via hand written note - and ask if there is anything relse they need from her. Not knowing when you've asked them to have them in the mail, I would time the note for about 1-2 weeks before that date.

This!

As I've said before, I didn't know what a rec was until I came to this site, after I had already graduated. If anyone asked me to write a rec back then, I would have given them a funny look and asked them what they were talking about. And let's face it: it's not good when a PNM has to teach an alumna about sorority procedures. It's probably a little awkward on both sides of the fence.

Heck, even if a PNM came to me today and asked me to write a rec, I'd be more than willing to help, but I wouldn't know where to start.

Actually, our org has had numerous webinars recently about all kinds of policies and procedures. Perhaps I'll suggest that this gets put on the list of topics to discuss...

Also, I don't know the other NPC's policies, but in my sorority you have to be a paid member in order for your rec to count. And the recs go through FHQ, so they check them. I haven't learned if legacy forms get forwarded with the paid membership, but it wouldn't surprise me. Pay your dues!

I was just paging through one of my recent alum magazines and there is a real push for alumnae to write and send more recs. The article said that the majority of our chapters do not receive any MIFs (our recs are called MIFs) and this is something they would like to change. They have certainly made it easier, our MIFs are now done online and are electronically forwarded directly to the chapter - you attach the PNM resume, pic, etc, and you're good to go.

I would guess that most of the chapters that do receive MIFs are SEC chapters, but maybe another AOII here can confirm.

Yeah, SEC and other Southern chapters are more likely to have recs. The chapters I've advised in MD, AZ and CA, while not competitive recruitment schools, have not been chapters that received recs. All of my alum chapters have been confused about the idea of them, as well. I've volunteered to write an recs requested from us by women heading to SEC schools since the local alums are unaware of what is needed.

I know that I've been quietly reading on this, but let me add this:

My ADPi little sister has three daughters, twins who decided not to go through recruitment, and one who wanted to do so (at VTech). LS hasn't even seen an Adelphean for years, but she decided to let me know HALFWAY THROUGH RECRUITMENT!! I asked if LSD (couldn't resist Little Sister's Daughter) had recs, and LS told me, "she told them that she was a legacy." ACK!!! With her permission, I contacted the Chapter Advisor, and got in touch with other wonderful NPC ladies who immediately did so for LSD, too. LSD is a wonderful young woman, with so many skills, it's amazing, and managed to get all the way until prefs, where she didn't get the invitations to neither of the sororities where she felt comfortable, and dropped out of Recruitment.

This is SO HARD for me, because she had it. She got through all but one round (with ADPi). While I'm not positive (due to membership selection reasons), I am 90% positive that LSD was seriously crippled by not having a FULL legacy rec (yes, ADPi was one of her desired GLOs). Her mother wasn't familiar with the necessity of recs at VTech because our chapter rarely got them. She hadn't been receiving the Adelphean, so she didn't hear it there.

I cannot imagine taking Physics 201 without taking the entry level classes first - don't let a PNM go through Recruitment without Recs! Just because the school says that they are unnecessary doesn't mean that they won't help a PNM immensely!

I can only hope that LSD gives it another try...

'I cannot imagine taking Physics 201 without taking the entry level classes first - don't let a PNM go through Recruitment without Recs! Just because the school says that they are unnecessary doesn't mean that they won't help a PNM immensely!'


Another great way to explain WHY RECS! Thank you Honeychile!

My chapter (U of Illinois - Big 10) received recs, but certainly not for all or even a majority of PNMs. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State (Big 12) are schools where every single PNM will have at least 1 rec to be considered. Many Big 12 schools have very competitive recruitments.

I know I'm not technically treading on membership selection info here, so don't flame me, but I wanted to say that a couple of years ago, everyone in our new member class had a recommendation letter. Every. Single. One. At Wisconsin.
Now, that was unusual, and certainly some recs were more moving, more helpful, etc., than others. In the past few years, I'd say our chapter gets 70-130 recs each fall. That's not a large percentage of the total number of women coming through recruitment, but it is way more than a typical quota. When we can fill a a couple of pledge classes with women on whom we have previous knowledge, it can make it harder to stand out if you *don't* have a rec. And if you're a legacy and don't have a recommendation- that ends up looking odd, because in the best case scenario, your legacy-maker is unaware of current rec/legacy policies or practice.

Irishpipes, I'm curious - do you know for sure that your chapter received few recs? Were you on a recruitment committee where you'd be privy to that info? I ask because I've listened to women swear their chapter didn't get recs, but they weren't on any kind of committee that processed them and they really didn't know. They only knew that occasionally it was mentioned that a PNM had a rec.

I think Irishpipes is probably accurate...the situation at Wisconsin is typical, I think. Big 10 schools just aren't as into this as the SEC schools are. I've been approached for 3 recs during the past 10 years I've been an alumnae chapter president...one for Alabama, one for TCU, and one for Miami-Ohio. The chapter I help advise gets a handful each year...and they really stand out (positively) because they're so unusual.

I was at the same school, and I am certain we only got about a handful, having been chapter president and privy to that info.

I think this is one of those things where changes in recruitment may have occurred very rapidly over time. What happened last year may be very different from what was the norm only five years ago.
In 2012, my daughter attended an Alumnae Panhellenic Recruitment Information Night in the Midwest during her senior year. I am sure some of the PNMs would be attending SEC schools or Indiana, but certainly not the majority. There were 200+ attendees. So logically, Big Ten sororities must receive some recs.
NOTE: I am not asking anyone to divulge their age or year of graduation.

Our APH rep has had zip, zero luck in getting our APH to show any interest in having an event for seniors or doing anything about rec writing. There are a few alumnae around here who are "with it" but not many. When my daughter was getting recs 2 years ago, only a couple women who wrote them had done so previously.

Yes, I was privy to it. We had a ton of legacies come through, and most of them had legacy forms, but not too many others had recs. But, that was a long time ago and I think recs in general were not as widely used. I am quite certain that recs are much more common at my chapter now. The chapter very actively solicits them.

I don't know if you were directing part of your comment at me or not, but I have never said that my chapter didn't get recs. I know we did, but I also strongly suspect most PNMs did not have them - I know they didn't for my GLO. I know many of the women we pledged did not have them. I am sure that certain chapters on campus used them more than we did, and some chapters used them less.

The whole rec business is a lot easier now with electronic media, and I think that has aided the increase in rec usage at schools that didn't consider them heavily before.

You and I were also both collegians in the pre-RFM days, too, right? With chapters needing to make heavier cuts much earlier in the process, I could see why both sides (chapters and PNM's) would make a lot more effort to find recs.

OK! No, I wasn't really thinking you were clueless! But I have known other women who were have declared "We never got recs" when I know very well that they did - it's just that they were never involved in that part of the process.

Yes indeed! WAY more women out there now who are sorority alumnae. Can you imagine having to do all this by US mail? That's how it was done when I started out! And pre-1950, probably all written by hand!

After reading the title of this thread, I came to the conclusion that there is nothing we can tell overconfident PNMs. They seem to have all the answers. They come to us experienced members of GLOs for help and then throw all our advice out the window, preferring to rely on the advice of nonmembers of GLOs. Please don't waste our time if you are going to disregard our sincere desire to help you--clearly, you don't need our help.

Hey, if every girl who went into rush at Bama or Ole Miss, etc. actually listened to advice, came in prepared and accepted the invitations they were given, think of how huge the pledge classes would be! So much worse than they are now. Consider them doing the chapters a favor.

Yes, let the trainwrecks crash before initiation rather than after.

TTT!

I do have an update on this one. I got the school bid list when it came out and her name was not on it.

Don't you just hate it when you are right.... said no one here ever. :rolleyes:

What I'd tell them: You are not a special snowflake. At a competitive school, it's a dog eat dog world and you as a PNM are wearing Milk Bone underwear

I think there is a difference in having a healthy self confidence and feeling entitled.

No one is entitled to invitations to parties or receiving a bid. Membership is a privilege, not a right. And I think that is very important to keep in mind in going through recruitment. A certain humility is a very attractive quality.

What happened with this girl?

I think PNMs and their parents get confused when they hear about being guaranteed a bid if you maximize your options. They don't understand that you don't always have options to maximize. I know that has been publicized to keep girls from suiciding, but sometimes it seems that it isn't explained well and it gets people upset.

Agree, and I also think that many schools do a bad job of explaining "mutual selection". I wish I could inscribe across the front of recruitment booklets of competitive schools: "Mutual selection means that you get very little say in this--the sororities do almost all of the choosing. Good luck!"

^^^ This would be for the best understanding by the PNMs and their families which is why it won't happen.

Here's what mutual selection means: they pick you and you get to say yes or no. At then end. But not until then.

I had to have the discussion with an alumna of another sorority who asked me for a rec for her daughter. She repeated the "guaranteed placement" line to me, and I carefully explained that only applies IF SHE MAKES IT TO PREFERENCE. That is nowhere the same thing as guaranteed placement. Thankfully she didn't think her snowflake was guaranteed a bid into her sorority and basically said legacy doesn't mean squat (which I also would argue. It means a bit more than squat - but not much). Thankfully in this case the mother and daughter are not overconfident; just not completely clear on how RFM works. And in this case I think they are both clear that if you want to join a sorority, you accept your invitations each day and say thank you.