Deferred rush recs timeline?
 

I'm going to be matriculating at a school that holds formal rush in January when we get back from semester break.

Should I be lining up recs to have them sent now before the college breaks for the summer or wait to ask my contacts until the summer so they can arrive in the fall?

Also, how many recs per house should I get? 1,2,3? I don't want to overdo it but I don't want to fall short.

I'm not even at the school yet so there is no rush counselor to ask.

Thanks in advance!

If it's a competitive school, there is no "overdoing" it.

As for the timeline questions, I would call the school's Greek life office.

It's not SEC, but it is southern and considered competitive especially for certain groups. I will do my best to keep an open mind as everybody suggests.

If it's a competitive school, I would get as many recs as possible for each chapter. "Going overboard" would be seeking out people you don't know to write recs if you already have them for a certain house... just get the recs you can from the people you and your family know, and see where that puts you.

Like 33girl said, you'll need to call Greek Life to find out the appropriate rec timeline.

Actually, I don't know many potential rec-writers myself. My mother is going to call her friends from her own sorority for the legacy recs and then call the local graduate Panhel group for contacts to the other sororities. We don't live in an area where greek life is routinely discussed by people my mother's age.

Is the advice still the same? I just don't want to mess up my chances before I even start!

Yes, still the same. What I meant was to avoid the following true story:

Susie Q rushee is a legacy at ABC at a competitive school. She gets recs from her mom and several of her mom's sisters, but also seeks out random people on the internet so that she will have 14 recs. The sisters at ABC realize that the girl has gotten recs from random people and wonder why she is working so hard to make herself look good when just the recs from mom and mom's sisters would have been fine. This makes the sisters at ABC wary of Susie Q when she is going through recruitment.

It's wonderful that your mom is helping you to seek out recs from local alum chapters for the houses you don't have contacts to. I also encourage you to ask your teachers if they were Greek. I am a high school drama teacher, and I know that a lot of my colleagues were Greek, so high schools are a great place to find recs from people you already know! :)

I don't think I have a choice about getting recs if I want to be invited back beyond the First Round. Somebody on a similar rush thread said that's the easiest cut to make: the girls without recommendations.