U of I fall 2010 recruitment--would love advice
 

My neice is going thru at Illinois next September. She is from a small town and knows maybe 2 girls who are in houses there. My sister and I are not familiar with this school's particular recruitment process, but are both Greek and know the drill---how many recs and letters are REALLY needed at this school, and do any of you alums have any other advice? She will be open-minded and really doesn't have preconceived ideas about houses going into rush.

Happy Independance Day everyone! !:D

Why is this in a different font than the rest of your posts?

Also, your edit didn't clear up the misspelling.

misspelling: no excuse, up too late and should have checked it--I have become too reliant on spellcheck, you know?

thank you for pointing that out

In case you did not see my response in the other thread: http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...68&postcount=6

I have a friend in Missouri whose daughter will be a sophomore at Illinois this fall. Last fall, she and her roomate went through formal recruitment, and both received bids to their #1 choices (different houses). Neither had recs. Can't hurt to have them, but like it's been said, it's not like SEC schools.

appreciate U of Illinois help/info
 

some big state schools really want recs AND mulitiple letters, so thought I'd better do some research--if getting 4 additional letters will help her pre-rush, then it would be nice to know. If those 4 additional letters will have the Illinois chapters' recruitment chairman rolling her eyes and muttering about over-achievers, even better to know!

really appreciate anyone taking the time to answer & share their Illinois experiences

and I did search, for HOURS, yesterday to try and find everything I could about recruitment at U of I on this site...and didn't find any specific Illinois threads--if I missed it, and didn't need to start something new I apologize
:)

Greekmomjo,

Try going to this site and click on recruitment if you haven't already. It tells a lot about the general aspects of the events.

I tried to get some letters from my close high school teachers who went to U of I, practically all of them did, but not all went greek. They thought I was better off going without letters so that I could choose the sorority right for me and with sisters who like me for who I am rather than having the letters help me out.

Let me know if you hear anything more!

I think that is very odd advice you received from your teachers and I feel as though you may be a bit confused about the purpose of rec letters. Recommendations letters do not guarantee bids. Heck, they don't even guarantee an invite back to the next round. The purpose of recommendation letters are to introduce you to the chapter before recruitment gets underway. At a school like U of I where there is regularly over 1200 PNMs, recs are very helpful. While they are definitely not necessary, having them would be advantageous. If you can get them, which it sounds like you can, then you definitely should.

That isn't really how recs or letters work. It doesn't "bind" you to the sorority in any way; however, it does sometimes get the sorority to give you a second look among the tons and tons and tons of girls where if they hadn't given you that second look, they would have cut you.

Rush was most likely very different when your teachers went through and not as competitive then as it is now. There are just simply more people in college, period. They really weren't doing you a favor if that is what they told you - in fact, their attitude and reluctance to write recs could possibly end up costing you membership in the group you want.

Were the non-greek teachers the ones who were telling you to go without recs? Because I can't imagine that a sorority woman would give this advice for a competitive recruitment (which it sounds like Illinois has, with 1200 PNMs!).

As a teacher, I love writing recs for my students. It makes me happy to introduce them to my sisters, and I get excited anytime a great former student is a potential new member and I can help her out with a rec. That's me, though; I can't speak for other teachers.

It just really surprises me that a GROUP of Greek women would all agree that they should not write you recs when you are going through recruitment at a really big school with so many PNMs.

I don't know much about Illinois recruitment, other than what I've read on GC, but based on that knowledge my advice would be: Ask them again for the recs, if you know how to get in touch with them over the summer. If they are teachers who are close to you and you tell them it is important, I would hope they would take the time out to help you have as smooth a recruitment process as possible.

Odds are they're remembering their recruitment and may not have had any idea what kind of effect recs had on PNMs when they were actives. And U of I is kind of unique in it's "competitive but not rec-focused" status. They have a ton of PNMs but a lot of chapters too.

But either way, yes, getting recs would still be a good idea.

Thanks... this is good to know!

yeah, thanks. Ill try to contact them, but i probably won't be able to. I just wish I saw this site earlier. It is really helpful. I think I might join a sorority without a house though. I don't think I can afford the cost of dues if they are like 2k per year...

I'll just go ahead and say it...I'm not sure if you really understand how recruitment/sorority life in general works. Read the stickies.

All the sororities are housed. If you don't want to live in a sorority house or be obligated to do so, you should not go through recruitment.