Local Panhellenic - SF Bay Area
 

Hello everyone! Thank you for all your great advice. My daughter is attending UT-Austin in the Fall, which we recognize is a competitive recruitment school. We are both working all of our contacts and connections to get letters of recs, and we are doing a pretty good job. There may be 1 or 2 that we simply cannot find alumnae, probably because the sorority is not well represented in the SF Bay Area.

I see reference to registering with your local PanHellenic. I have searched for one in the SF Bay Area, and am coming up blank. It would surprise me that such a large city would not have an organization such as this. Anyone aware if this exists?

In general, letters of rec are not well known in the area, as most California and Western schools don't seem to require them. But, we have more and more girls going to Southern schools (and a few going to Indiana this year - yikes!) so I'm hoping the awareness level is increasing.

Thank you!

The National Panhellenic website lists area advisers by states:

https://www.npcwomen.org/alumnae-pan...-advisors.aspx

DaffyKD

FYI: There isn't an adviser listed for San Francisco Bay Area at the link provided.

You may want to try the local Texas Alumni Assocation Group for a contact. I suspect someone in the Texas group would be able to steer (:D) you to a Texas NPC member who should be able to help. (This is what many of the SEC Alumni groups do here.)

San Francisco Bay Area Texas Exes

There are a couple of dozen in CA and several in the bay area. You can look for the one closest to you.

Excellent suggestion and pun, T Steven!

You are right. I was looking for "San Francisco" specific. :o

The advisor who covers San Mateo County, Sonoma County, and the South Bay (Silicon Valley) should be able to help as she seems to cover the Northern part of California.

Or she could just search for an alum PH in those areas...

Diablo Valley Panhellenic (Contra Costa County) is a good resource. Don't know exactly where the OP is. b/c she said "Bay Area" which covers a pretty sizable geographic area and population.

Thanks everyone! I did email the contact name from the NPCWomen website, and she got back to me with some suggestions. I'm am actually in the coverage area of Diablo Valley Panhellenic, but unfortunately the FB page seems inactive this year. They did do a session the last 2 years to explain the sorority process to local girls (which is sadly needed around here) but it looks like there are no plans this year.

TStephen, when you mention "Texas Alumni Assocation Group" are you referring to the City of Austin Panhellenic if you are planning to attend UT? Sorry for my ignorance.

What about contacting the missing sorority HQs? That came out wrong. I was trying not to end a sentence with a preposition. What i mean is that you are missing a rec from EFG so you contact their HQ and see if they have a local alumnae chapter that you can contact in your area.

FB message the previous Diablo Valley Panhellenic contact.

Persistence pays off.

I got a rec through Diablo Valley. There are a LOT of sorority women in the Bay Area, but you are correct that there are some that are not well represented.

ETA: good luck!

PM me with who you need and if it's my group, I might be able to find someone for you. Have several sisters in the Bay area whom I know well.

Sorry for any confusion. The link I provided is to the website for the University of Texas Alumni group located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The reason I suggest them as a possible option is that GLO alumnae are often involved with their local college alumni club/group and there may be Texas alumnae who are also members from those chapters where your daughter still needs recommendations.

For what it is worth, it is common for the various SEC Alumni groups here in the Bay Area to receive emails asking if there are NPC alumnae who might be able to assist with recommendations. Since NPC recruitment at Texas is also competitive, I would suspect such a request would not seem out of place for Texas alumnae as well.

That's a GREAT suggestion TSteven!
Seems like the bigger the city, the less active the alumnae group. They're volunteer organizations, and sometimes there's just not that one motivated individual to spark the group.

Keep asking around...there are hundreds of sorority women around you. They just don't advertise. You may find them telling you that your DD does not really need recommendations, but it's Texas and she DOES. Good for you for starting early!

Here's the link to the NPC map of groups: https://www.npcwomen.org/map/default.aspx
Alumnae panhellenics are the blue pins. Looks like the Silicon Valley group is active. You might query them...maybe they can send your daughter's info to them...they can give it to their member groups to forward to alumnae closer to you.

Best of luck!

Thanks to everyone for their advice! We are making progress in finding recs! For those who PM'ed me, thank you and I'll be back in touch shortly.

I know that the South Bay Alumnae Group is active as well as Sacramento. Please let me know if I can be of any help.
Fraternally.