Questions about no contact/legacies
 

Hi! My name is Casey and I'm going to be participating in recruitment at a big state school in the South. No one I know (with the exception of my mom) has ever been in a sorority so I am kind of lost. Sorry if these questions have been asked a million times.

I know that I am not supposed to contact any sorority members, but what if they are disaffiliated? Two disaffiliated members hosted an information session on Greek life at orientation, so I would think it would be okay? I have some questions and would like to email the head of recruitment if allowed.

My mother was Greek but is now deceased. My school has a chapter of her sorority, do I count as a legacy?

You are definitely a legacy. Have you got your recs lined up?

Which head of recruitment are you trying to contact? The head of panhellenic recruitment at the university (totally okay to contact Greek Life office and ask questions about recruitment) or the head of recruitment at ABC sorority? (totally NOT okay to contact this girl)

Yes, I have contacted an alumni from almost every sorority and given them my recommendation info, so I think I'm covered. I was interested in contacting the Panhellenic head of recruitment- definitely not any individual sororities!

Another question.. I have tried to research how recruitment works but I'm still a little confused. Do they put the rushees in groups? How many girls are in each group? Are they the same all week?

I just saw a post where someone said 1 rec is minimum.. will I be okay if I only have 1 for each sorority? I was always under the impression that 1 is perfectly adequate and any more is overkill. I had enough trouble finding 1 for each sorority, I don't think I could find any more!

Thanks to everyone reading this. I know I must sound so clueless.

Sorry to double post.

Just to clarify- Is the rec writer for the sorority that your mom was a member of aware of your legacy connection? Different organizations will have different manners of identifying/confirming legacy relationships, but your rec writer will definitely need to know this information to ensure that the chapter becomes aware.

You mentioned south. My 2 cents would be that one rec is better than no recs. Two or three recs is better than one rec. However, one very well written rec by someone who knows you personally can suffice.

Do what you can. Continue to network and ask your current rec writers what they know about the school that you are attending. They may be able to point you to other alumnae.

Good luck!

re: recruitment groups. You'll be assigned to a recruitment group with one or two counselors assigned to your group. Your group will travel together for the first set of parties. After that, your recruitment group will remain the same, ie you'll meet together before parties to get your schedules and you'll meet after the parties to input your preferences but for the invitation only parties each PNM will have an individualized schedule.

Ask the rec writers you already have if they know someone else in their group who could write you a rec. You may not realize you know another member. And if you are missing a group, ask all your rec writers if they know someone in that group. That's perfectly acceptable to do.

Thanks for all the answers. Yes, the person who wrote my rec is aware that my mom was a member. She was actually my mom's sorority sister!

How long do the parties last?

That depends on your school. The PH page on your school's web site should have something about this. Typically the first round is 20-30 minutes as you basically just walk through and meet a few people really quickly. The remaining rounds get progressively longer till pref night when the parties are usually 1 hour.

There are recruitment stories on GreekChat. The best way to find them is to google the following:

Greekchat.com {school/or/state} story rush

You can paste that in your search box and replace the {school/or/state} before you hit [search].