Letters of Rec - Chapter Perspective
 

So one of the other threads got me thinking about letters of rec from the chapter perspective. I know some schools will get tons of them and there are plenty of alumnae who are ready and willing to write them.

Where I went to school we would get 1 or 2 and really only from legacies. If a chapter wanted to increase the number of recommendations they receive how would they do that?

That is a good question. I'm looking forward to the responses.

We love to get recommendations but only get around 20 each year. It seems if you aren't on a competitive campus you don't get recs unless the girls come from a competitive campus part of the country.

In Delta Gamma we have City and State Sponsorship chairmen. If youu have something similar, I'd send an email to those where most of your students come from letting them know when recruitment is and that you are interested in recs on the women from there. We actually send the list from ICS to the individual city chairs and ask for sponsor forms on those women. So, we give them the list and all the info we have from ICS so they have home address, HS, etc. Each state chairman has a list of members in areas where there isn't a city chair and she can try to get one. It's a huge undertaking - but, hey, we're in the south so it's what we do.

Our delegate to the local Alumnae Panhellenic Chapter tried to stir up interest amongst the other delegates when she was President a couple years ago...having a HS senior info. session, going to local high schools, something...anything! There was NO interest on the part of the other sororities in doing anything involving writing recs or encouraging Recruitment participation. Yes, we are in the North. ;)

The place to start would be with the girls you have in the chapter now. Start with asking girls to stand up at prerecruitment and "introduce" a girl from their high school or hometown that they know is will be going through recruitment. Later on, explain to them that there is no way to really know everyone coming through recruitment and can be really hard to pick the best pledge class - so ask them to ask the alumnae in the area for help. Go to a local alum meeting or host a collumnae event and ask alums if they know great quality girls that might be going to school there in the next year or couple of years. Then ask the girls that have just graduated or are graduating to recommend someone from their hometown.

That's pretty much how it has always been.

Recs don't help you to "know" a girl at all. They are simply an alumna vouching for a rushee's activities (i.e. that she really did them, not that she pulled them out of her hat) and her character. How well did your parents' friends truly "know" you, as far as things like your musical interests, what really made you upset, how you interacted with your friends etc?

If recs were that powerful and prevented any bad decisions and assured that you would always have "the best pledge class" - in other words, if they were 100% guaranteed to be flawless - wouldn't every chapter of every sorority use them?

No, but a well-written one will help you get an idea of the kinds of things that interest her, what she excels in, where her values lie.
Of course, all bets are off when the young 'uns head off for freedom and no accounting to mom and dad every night.
I've seen some fabulous recs written vouching for pure young ladies who wound up bedding the football and basketball teams and getting arrested at her drug dealer boyfriend's apartment.
No, it's not perfect.
But it's better than nothing.
I'd give you some examples of train wrecks avoided (or that could have been avoided) with a little background checking by a conscientious alumna, but they'd be too identifiable.

And there is always the one who had a most glowing rec from a well known alum in her hometown who somehow didn't know that the girl had pledged elsewhere - and had her pledgeship terminated for, shall we say, activities detrimental to the chapter. Found that out just in the nick of time!

OK, so a rec has no way of predicting who's going to go ape$**t bonkers once they don't live with Mom and Dad any more, but that's hard to predict in three or four 30 minute conversations, too. I have seen a couple of those, but I have also seen OOS girl or small-town-girl-that-doesn't-know-anyone work out great. I'm not talking about filling a whole pledge class with girls based only on alum recs, just about finding a couple of great girls who might otherwise be missed. (Case in point - moi. :D)

The best shot at recruitment is still to already know girls in the chapter.

Another point - some chapters (thankfully, not many) seem to think that alumnae are telling the chapter what to do when they send a rec.
Honestly, it's usually just advice.
Except.....in 35 years of writing recs, about once every 8 or 9 or 10 years, I have an absolute NO. As in, "drop this girl first round and don't look back."
Usually the chapter heeds the advice, but sometimes they don't.
I've never, ever seen a girl with a "no" rec from an alum who pledged and turned out well. They don't make their grades (in the old days) and drug everybody down, they go back home after initiation and never show up again, they cause drama....SOMEthing that made me think, "if only...."

Thankfully I can say that, to my knowledge, no chapter has pledged a girl I did a "no" on - and they are few and far between anyway. I did have to argue with one chapter about a girl who they just "knew" everyone else wanted. Ha! She was dropped 2nd day by all..and dropped again the next year when she tried a second time. Ooh...perish the thought!

We do this part already but I don't think it is the same as getting a rec for her. Isn't a rec really needed for people you don't already know.

This is interesting. What do the Sponsorship Chairmen do if they don't know the PNM?

I was trying to think of how someone would start cold turkey. The idea was start with the girls introducing someone they know, and then use that to introduce rec letters as that same kind of introduction but from an alumna. Or use letters to reinforce the good things - so the chapter doesn't have to go based solely on one or two members opinions.

If they started with letters from ladies recently graduated, they will respond to a recommendation of someone they don't know, but someone else they respect/know does.

Solicit them from your alumnae who live in the PNMs hometowns. It becomes difficult if you don't receive the names and hometowns of the PNMs until recruitment starts. Some Panhellenics give you this information throughout the summer.

My personal 2 cents...

PAPER + PERSONAL PRESENTATION = A PLEDGE

Does the rec tell you all you need to know? No. It can provide valuable information. It's my feeling that a leopard does not change his spots -- or as Dr. Phil (McGraw) says, "The best forecaster of future behavior is past behavior." Alums are writing a rec on a girl who has had 18 years to build her resume and reputation. I think that is a pretty good forecaster of what she'll do in college.