Quote:
Originally Posted by AGDee
Even deeper than that though... girls don't have recs up here because they have no clue that they might want to go through recruitment until they're at school, see the Greek tables at the student org fairs, go to some Meet the Greek events around campus to get the free food and then say "Hey, that looks like it might be fun to do" three days before recruitment starts. They don't sign up 4 months in advance and move into the dorms early. If they did, nobody would be there. They show up to orientation and register. When would they possibly get recs? Being greek is rarely on their radar before they get to school. As much as I talked it up to Hypo's friends, the one who did go through (other than Hypo) didn't even tell me until after first rounds and it was too late for me to do a rec! She's an Alpha Gam anyway, but still...
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I'd say a fair amount of what AGDee said above applies to the older chapter, Big Ten (13?) campuses. There are absolutely women who know they want to participate in FR before they come to school, but I'd say it's less than 50 percent, probably closer to 30 (at least, at the 3 schools I've been involved with in the past decade).
That said, just because a campus isn't on the list of RECS REQUIRED, doesn't mean recs are uncommon. I don't think it's out of line for me to say that two years ago, every single woman on our bid list had a rec written for her prior to recruitment. Now, that was unusual, but I'd say last year, probably 2/3rds of the bid list had recs. Again, that brings into question what
quality of recs did each woman have? I'm sure it varied. But even this Yankee
knows what is a blah/lame/waste of time rec, what is a good rec, and what is a great rec. Thankfully I have yet to receive a "cannot recommend" rec.
There were certainly ladies with great recs who did not make it to later rounds and (in normal years) there were obviously ladies who did not have recs that made it to the bid list.
I just want to make it clear that, at the old, Midwestern campuses & chapters that I've worked with, we did receive recs, we did use them, and we did weigh them individually along with all the other info we had on the PNMs. I'm sure it varies from school to school, organization to organization and chapter to chapter, but I (and I believe, the actives) found them useful.
Just my perspective
