Rec's for Sororities

[Ghostwriter]

I apologize in advance but I would like to ask this dumb question which has probably been answered before in some other thread or threads.

If a University has 10-15 Sororities on campus do you get "rec's" for each Sorority via alumnae from that particular Sorority or can you get a more generic recomendation from a Sorority alumanae and use it for the various Sororities? If there are 10 different Sororities do you need 10 different "rec's". If so how do you find Alumnae in all these different Sororities? My daughters went to a school with 5 or 6 Sororities and they both joined Delta Zeta. I do not remember them getting rec's at all. Maybe they were just smart and kept me out of the loop. This was certainly not an SEC school but it was in the South.

Sorority recruitment fascinates me as it is so different from what joining a Fraternity entails or used to entail. We just drank beer and liquor, met the brothers and talked for a while and then had an open party after 10:00 p.m. to meet the ladies back in the olden days.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Ghostwriter

If a University has 10-15 Sororities on campus do you get "rec's" for each Sorority via alumnae from that particular Sorority or can you get a more generic recomendation from a Sorority alumanae and use it for the various Sororities? If there are 10 different Sororities do you need 10 different "rec's". If so how do you find Alumnae in all these different Sororities? My daughters went to a school with 5 or 6 Sororities and they both joined Delta Zeta. I do not remember them getting rec's at all. Maybe they were just smart and kept me out of the loop. This was certainly not an SEC school but it was in the South.

If there are 10 sororities, you have to get 10 recs. The rec for sorority ABC has to be written by an ABC alum, a PQR alum has to write the rec for PQR and vice versa.

You find alumnae through Alumnae Panhellenics or just through connections. Greeks usually know other Greeks.

If the school wasn't competitive, recs most likely weren't needed for them to get a bid.

[Ghostwriter]

Wow - that sounds like a lot of work and I believe you are correct about the rec's not being necessary at my daughters school. The school was large but the Greek population was about 5-6 %. Not near the level of most SEC schools. Sororities were all above 100 girls and the pledge classes were 40+.

How does a High School student from PoDunk High find out how to get rec's? Is this just common knowledge? Also, what if a young lady thinks she wouldn't want to go through Rush but changes her mind when she gets on campus? Is she just SOL or is this something that can be over come? Last stupid question. Do Alumnae write rec's for people they don't know or do they interview these young ladies to determine their qualities?

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by Ghostwriter

Sorority recruitment fascinates me as it is so different from what joining a Fraternity entails or used to entail. We just drank beer and liquor, met the brothers and talked for a while and then had an open party after 10:00 p.m. to meet the ladies back in the olden days.

And we managed to have damn good pledge classes.

I would just add that at Kentucky, women attended the open rush parties too. Maybe that is why we had such good pledge classes.

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by Ghostwriter

Wow - that sounds like a lot of work and I believe you are correct about the rec's not being necessary at my daughters school. The school was large but the Greek population was about 5-6 %. Not near the level of most SEC schools. Sororities were all above 100 girls and the pledge classes were 40+.

How does a High School student from PoDunk High find out how to get rec's? Is this just common knowledge? Also, what if a young lady thinks she wouldn't want to go through Rush but changes her mind when she gets on campus? Is she just SOL or is this something that can be over come? Last stupid question. Do Alumnae write rec's for people they don't know or do they interview these young ladies to determine their qualities?

Yes, it is a lot of work...even if you know alums in all the groups on that campus! And very much more so if you don't. The best way for any young woman to get them is to ask family friends, teachers, employers, friends who are already in college sororities, etc. In other words, networking! And quite often, an alum of one group will have friends who are alums of other groups. For example, there are 16 NPC groups at Alabama - I can get a rec for any of them because I have friends in all the groups. Generally speaking, if I ask a friend to do a rec for a young lady, she will take my word for the woman's qualities as my friends know I won't ask for just anyone and I will be up front about the young woman and her qualities - or lack thereof. We're all pretty good about that.

If she gets on campus and then decides to go thru recruitment, at an SEC school she'd be pretty much out of luck. All the big southern schools require recs and if they have huge numbers coming thru, the chapter won't bother to get one themselves. They have too many already so why bother chasing down a dozen or so. They can have a great new member class without them. Sad for the young women who didn't prepare in advance, but true. Since most of these type schools have recruitment before school starts (except for Ole Miss), you wouldn't really have that problem as the woman wouldn't be on campus that far in advance of recruitment.

Hope this all makes sense.

[Zillini]

Just to give ya'll an idea. This year there were around 1475 PNMs signed up for Recruitment at Bama. My Chapter received Recs for well over 1200 of the PNMs and many of those had 2, 3 or more sent on their behalf. I opened up about a week's worth of our Rec mail this summer and spent 4+ hours just opening envelopes.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Ghostwriter

How does a High School student from PoDunk High find out how to get recs? Is this just common knowledge?

We have been touching on/venting about that very subject. Some school's websites (or should I say, some Panhellenic websites set up for specific schools) do say that recs are something that should be required. Other schools - even if you do need recs - don't mention it at all, and that's where Polly Podunk is out of luck.

I'm guessing the reason that it can't be out & out said on a website "you have to have recs or you'll get cut" is that it treads too closely into member selection and Panhel can't comment on member selection processes for any specific group. It can only speak to the qualifications that are in the NPC Unanimous Agreements - i.e., you have to be a female, full time college student at the college where the sorority is.

[Ghostwriter]

Thanks all. I guess the bottom line is that anything worth having is worth working for. As I said before I am just happy Fraternity guys do not have to go through this as there would be very few Fraternities left. We are a little too lazy to get Rec's. You know that if a lady applied at several large Universities in say Florida for example and didn't know which one she would attend she might just have to get Rec's for all 26+ Sororities just to be safe. Interesting problem to have.

[Titchou]

Well, you wouldn't get your recs until you registered for recruitment as you wouldn't know which ones you need nor where to send them. They go to the individual chapters - not the national orgranization.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Ghostwriter

Thanks all. I guess the bottom line is that anything worth having is worth working for. As I said before I am just happy Fraternity guys do not have to go through this as there would be very few Fraternities left. We are a little too lazy to get Rec's. You know that if a lady applied at several large Universities in say Florida for example and didn't know which one she would attend she might just have to get Rec's for all 26+ Sororities just to be safe. Interesting problem to have.

Well, usually I think people know far enough ahead where they're going to school that they don't have to do that. I mean if you get accepted in October of your senior year and start working on your recs in November, that's ample time.

[Ghostwriter]

Originally Posted by Zillini

Just to give ya'll an idea. This year there were around 1475 PNMs signed up for Recruitment at Bama. My Chapter received Recs for well over 1200 of the PNMs and many of those had 2, 3 or more sent on their behalf. I opened up about a week's worth of our Rec mail this summer and spent 4+ hours just opening envelopes.

Did you read them all!!

[Jill1228]

Originally Posted by Zillini

Just to give ya'll an idea. This year there were around 1475 PNMs signed up for Recruitment at Bama. My Chapter received Recs for well over 1200 of the PNMs and many of those had 2, 3 or more sent on their behalf. I opened up about a week's worth of our Rec mail this summer and spent 4+ hours just opening envelopes.

Holy shite! How many papercuts did you get? That is just insane!

[AnchorAlumna]

Why is it insane? IF you had 1,475 PNMs signed up, wouldn't you WANT to have more than 1,200 recs?

And yes...they DO read every one of them.

That's why it's important to have recs!

[FSUZeta]

i came from a small town, but had recs. to all the sororities at fsu. they came from relatives, teachers, moms or sisters of friends, and connections thru those groups. it can be done if an effort is put forth.