[Low C Sharp]

However, it probably plays as much as it does in a job interview.

At some schools and chapters, I'm sure you're right. I have never seen a class of new hires that looks like the pledge classes in the writer's chapter, except in a field like pharmaceutical sales, where they do acknowledge that they prefer good-looking, fit people. Obviously, it varies a lot from campus to campus, but the op-ed writer and the letter writer are just talking about theirs, and in her case, just her one chapter. Her pledge class did not need to learn anything about hair straightening or makeup or fitness -- or orthodontia or bone structure, for that matter. I'm not saying that they're all Miss Universe, but it's a really attractive group of freshmen.

I don't think it's inherently wrong to take that into account -- I just think it's wrong to do it and then deny it.

maybe that's a better way to put it?

MUCH better. If she'd put it that way, I'd agree with her 100%, and the letter would have been a lot more convincing. She made it too easy to dismiss the whole letter as PR spin, so her good points won't get the weight they deserve.