Where are all the Potential PNMs?

[chickenoodle]

Originally Posted by Zillini

In essence a Rec is telling a Chapter that not only do I believe this young woman would be a good member, but it says that I would be happy to have her as my sister.
My 2 cents.

Since beginning my inquiry into recruitment and sorority, I've always viewed sorority recs the same as job application recs. You don't just walk up (or e-mail, etc) a complete stranger and ask for a recommendation letter when applying for your dream job. It seems like common sense.

In reference to what Zillini is saying, my boyfriend's mother talked to me at length about what it means to be in a sorority, the type of committment, etc. When she offered to write a rec for me, I felt so (I know it's cheesy, brace yourself) honored. This accomplished woman, who loved her sorority immensely, wanted me as her sister.

So... we'll see what happens.

[libelle]

Carnation made a very good point. I have been the rec chair for my alumnae chapter for several years. I have yet to be asked by a local PNM to write a letter. However, I have written several for relatives and family friends from the south. In fact one of the reasons I started to visit GreekChat was due to requests for recs for SEC schools.

Our local NPC alumnae chapter is not helpful. A phone number is listed on the NPC site but the group does not and has no interest in assisting PNMS with recs. It would be difficult for a PNM to identify the appropriate contacts for most NPC groups via the web unless she searched the individual NPC web sites. As per a separate thread, some groups make this information more easily available than others. That said, if a PNM contacted me, I know local alumnae of about 1/2 the NPC groups from other volunteer work that I do. Many of these do not have an alumnae chapter in our area so again it would be very challenging to find an alumna to write a rec.

I encourage PNMs to work through their personal contacts, check the local NPC group via the NPC web site, search for the local alumnae chapter contact info via the group's (inter)national website , etc. Once you find a few alumnae they can probably link you with friends who are alumnae of other groups.

Good luck, PNMs!

[UGAalum94]

I make sure when I do recs that I'm completely honest about how well I actually know the PNM and where my info is coming from. The chapter can do with that information what they will.

I think assessing character in 18 year olds is pretty complicated, and while I do my best to spare chapters any difficulties by providing as much information as I can, to take too much responsibility for a girl's future behavior would make writing RIFs really hard for me. It may be a peril of teaching high school, but I hear about enough good girls with no signs of problems who go kind of wild freshman year frequently enough to know that what I see of them and the general consensus of adults in a girl's hometown is going to miss the mark in a small percentage of cases.

I'm not saying this to make the argument that it doesn't matter anyway, so recommend strangers or even that you should write them in cases when your instincts tell you that you shouldn't, like Zillini mentions. I just mean that even when you do know people well at this age, knowing what they are likely to do in the future is complicated.

And, I understood that the reason that it was kind of okay to ask strangers for recs was because that person had resources to find other alumnae who would actually know the girl. But maybe I'm wrong.

I think that many of our active alumnae networks are too small to really do recs only for people we knew perfectly. We'd miss too many great girls. Sometimes we're better off offering the imperfect information that we do have to offer what assistance we can.