Overheard at Starbucks today....

[iamamom]

My daughter is not a special snowflake, not famous, not a pageant queen or whatever makes pnm's think they'll waltz in and get their 'dream' house.

She went oos to an SEC school. The places where she had the strongest reqs and letters of recommendation cut her the first night, and she ended up getting a bid to the sorority where her rec writers must not have understood how to get it to the right places first. They told her bid day they had to go get her recs for her.

If anyone heard her story they'd assume it would have made no difference whether she had recs or not. I'm certainly of that opinion now.

[Sciencewoman]

Originally Posted by iamamom

If anyone heard her story they'd assume it would have made no difference whether she had recs or not. I'm certainly of that opinion now.

Having a rec =/= any guarantee of an invitation to any successive rounds for NPC group, as far as I'm aware (assuming non-legacy), but it can't hurt, either.

My daughter did have a personal rec to the group she joined, at a school that's on the "up for debate" list in the "where you absolutely need recs" thread. She also had recs to 3 groups who cut her after the first round. In fact, two of the groups cut everyone on her hall, and the third invited 2 hallmates to second round, then cut them, too. So, I'd agree there's no guarantee, but I think they did help her get invited back to some of the other groups (one of which is a group that I think requires recs at the national level).