sponsors/recs

[valkyrie]

I know this has been discussed before, but I still don't get it and want to try to understand.

I keep hearing about sponsors or recommendations. I understand that a PNM may get recs on her own, say, if she knows an alumna of a particular organization and that woman writes a rec for her and sends it to the chapter. Cool.

What I don't get is this mysterious process of a sorority getting a rec for someone. How does this happen? Does the sorority have an advisor or someone else write a rec for a PNM that the collegiate members like but who the writer does not know? How is this helpful? Why bother writing it at all? Does the rec writer actually meet with the PNM before writing it, or is it really just a formality?

It also seems very stressful for a PNM to be thinking about how she couldn't get a rec on her own but *hopefully* they like her enough to come up with one somehow.

I understand that some organizations require recs at some point in the process. Why? How does a rec written by someone who doesn't really know the PNM help? Isn't this just silly?