OT To Greek Or Not To Greek

[Alexx]

Mizzou asked for a little bit but not a lot. I know GPA was on there and high school you graduated from. But not as much as is on my resume for sure. Plus no pics with registration for us and photos are usually included with recs which help people remember girls they talked to and such.


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Ah ok. We also included pictures of ourselves or you could use your school ID picture. Many girls submitted a phone of them at an extreme angle or super far away and it wasn't helpful at all.

 

[Flexiii_Lexiii]

Anyone rushing at a school with Delta Gamma let me know and I'll write one up for you! Always better to have it than not.

 

[Cheerfun2]

Back in the Dark Ages (late 80's, early 90's) when I was at college, we HAD to have a rec on everyone we wanted to pledge. I remember calling old biddie alums in random little towns (you know, like me-now ) and asking for them to get a rec on a girl at 10 pm the night before bid day. It was mostly to ensure that we were't about to extend a bid to a girl with a sketchy reputation. Of course, now a days that would be considered "slut shaming" and we'd probably get sued or something.

 

[stuntjumptumble]

My sorority (sigma delta tau) is much more prominent in the north but like everyone else I'd be happy to write a recommendation if needed! I know my school and many others around me don't require them. If anyone wants more info too I'd also be glad to give it


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[ErinS]

It's a lot like a resume - they want to know what girls were involved in, their GPA, achievements, etc. It helps them know a little more about a girl coming in than they would otherwise. At Mizzou (and schools like Bama, Texas Tech, etc) they're pretty much a necessity. Of course it's against NPC rules to make them required but in a sea of 2000 girls, if you're one of the few they don't have more info on you have less of a chance. Rush parties start at 15 minutes the first day and they have to get from 2000 girls to 85ish on bid day with only 3 rounds of cuts, so it helps to have more than that 15 minute convo to go off of.
Knowing that girls were involved in HS, have a history of doing a lot of service, etc is a really good thing that chapters are looking for and may not come up in conversation. It also, I guess, shows that they're invested in rushing and put in the effort to get recs so they're probably serious about joining Greek life (nobody wants to make quota and then have girls drop because they just rushed to see what it's like.)
I believe for some houses you can write out a letter of support along with a rec (maybe even my own I haven't checked out the form too much). A rec is mostly like a resume but a letter of support is for someone you know really well and want to go more in detail about their character, how great they are, etc and is an actual letter. My close friend's mom who is a DG did this for me.
It's definitely a little weird and it seems like they could just have everyone submit their resume with registration? But alas, this is the system we have.


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Yeah I get all that. I get the rush process

But what I still can't comprehend is getting letters of recommendation from random folks on the internet that you don't know, and they don't know you

And if a recommendation is like a resume, again, how can someone that doesn't know you write it? Vouch for you?

So basically this is all just for show?


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[ErinS]

The importance depends on the school. Kappa's "letter" is really just a form. You fill out their name and information, other greek affiliations, (if they're a legacy somewhere else, have three kappa cousins, etc.) grades, test scores, high school or previous college and GPA there, leadership roles, jobs, volunteer experience, extracurriculars etc. Then the type of person you think they would relate to best, so they can take that in to consideration when matching them with girls during recruitment (I've put stuff like a nursing major, someone who studied abroad, a former cheerleader). There's also a space to attach a headshot and anything else you want to add. Then check if you "know this girl personally" and fill in the number of years you've know her, "do not know this girl personally" or "have known this girl's family for ___ years". Whether the school takes this into consideration or not is up to them.

Going in to my senior year our recruitment chair was one of my best friends. She had some family issues over the summer and had to head back home, so she tasked me with picking up recs from the greek life office (back when people still sent hard copies to us). Of course curiousity got the best of me so I spent many a night flipping through them. Some were the basic printed out form filled out, some went above and beyond with special stationary, pictures attached with ribbon, resumes, personal letters, handwritten notes, etc. A lot of those were from.....Texas girls. lol. I've filled out one like that for a girl to rush at Alabama. Her mom sent all the fancy stuff to me (her resume on pretty paper, a headshot tied with ribbon, a pre-addressed and stamped envelope to Bama), I just added the filled out Kappa form. Every other one I've done has just been the form. Which again, is so much easier and less time consuming now that it's online.

I can tell you that recs are not required at South Carolina, all girls visit all houses. I entered with one rec letter and low and behold that's where I ended up. No idea if it played a role or not.

I can probably post some screenshots of ours. It reads much more like a resume than a "letter".

Okay but like...HOW?

They tell you what to say about them (because you don't know them) only to at the end of it all check that you don't know them personally?




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[cheerKT]

Yeah I get all that. I get the rush process

But what I still can't comprehend is getting letters of recommendation from random folks on the internet that you don't know, and they don't know you

And if a recommendation is like a resume, again, how can someone that doesn't know you write it? Vouch for you?

So basically this is all just for show?


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If I write one for someone I've never met I always request a resume. I get my information from that and ask for any additional info I need. If I enter that I do not know the potentially member personally, I have to enter from whom I received the information. It's up to the chapter to do with that what they will. Some may factor recs differently if they are a personal acquaintance vs. non.

 

[ErinS]

If I write one for someone I've never met I always request a resume. I get my information from that and ask for any additional info I need.

Okay but what if everything they tell you about themselves is a complete fallacy and misrepresentation of who they are, and they fundamentally are not representative of who the sororities values?


Like if Becky joins the sorority and turns out to be a academic cheater, does coke, cusses like a sailor and is a straight up slut and she makes it apparent the day after initiation or whatever...are like like "um why did this Katie say this heifer is so great"

Like would that not reflect poorly on the person that did the recommendation and like do y'all just not care? Do sororities in general just not care


Like I'm looking at this from the perspective of employment, where I've written letters for people that I believe in, that have gotten some bomb a-- jobs and would reflect poorly on me if they turned out to be trash (so sometimes I tell folks nah)


And from the perspective of doing grad chapter for my moms sorority, where I'm clearly a legacy and where some of the women that will be voting on me, held me the day I was born, but would still vote "no" if they felt I wasn't up to standard.


It just seems so foreign to me and strange but I digress. I suppose it works for y'all

 

[gymcatmomx2]

ErinS, I completely understand where you are coming from and I agree. There were a couple of very nice young ladies that wrote recs for my oldest CP from FB. There was also an alum from a local group that requested to meet my CP in person before she would write her a rec. I think the biggest thing for the more competitive SEC and southern schools is more that they took the effort and time to obtain a rec - because it is truly a lot of work when you have 12-17 sororities and they suggest you have one for each, preferably two. There are so many girls that go through recruitment at these large schools and most are highly accomplished. It just shows that the PNM put in the effort.

 

[MissCongeniality]

Anyone rushing at a school with Delta Gamma let me know and I'll write one up for you! Always better to have it than not.

I think DG rec can only be done once you're an alum

 

[Cheerfun2]

I'm with you @ErinS ... makes no sense to even bother if the alum doesn't know the rushee. We WANTED to know if the girl was questionable! Didn't want to find her table dancing at a frat house wearing the letters on Bid Night, lol! I guess things are just really different now.

 

[NJ Coach]

@ErinS I have never given a rec unless I know the girl or the family. I won't give one to someone just because. But that's my own personal thing.

 

[Mndl]

I'm sure many years ago recommendations actually meant something, much in the way they are still very important for the traditional black sororities. However now I think they are almost exclusively a "southern thing" and have been for a long time. When I rushed in the late 80's no one had recs, we once had a leadership consultant from Texas who simply could not wrap her head around the fact the we didn't have pictures of our rushees and that not a single girl going through had recs. This was at WVU but none of my friends who pledged at other schools in the mid-Atlantic or northern area ever recs. A few years ago I wrote one for a friend of a friends daughter when she was rushing at Alabama, I thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever because I never met the girl, but I guess these chapters just want a meaningless letter just to say they have it

 

[Cheerfun2]

I'm sure many years ago recommendations actually meant something, much in the way they are still very important for the traditional black sororities. However now I think they are almost exclusively a "southern thing" and have been for a long time. When I rushed in the late 80's no one had recs, we once had a leadership consultant from Texas who simply could not wrap her head around the fact the we didn't have pictures of our rushees and that not a single girl going through had recs. This was at WVU but none of my friends who pledged at other schools in the mid-Atlantic or northern area ever recs. A few years ago I wrote one for a friend of a friends daughter when she was rushing at Alabama, I thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever because I never met the girl, but I guess these chapters just want a meaningless letter just to say they have it

But see...it wasn't meaningless when done properly! I was in college the same time as you, but at a large SEC school. Our nationals most definitely required recs, and we had a whole committee of girls, starting after the second round, whose job it was to collect recs for girls we were interested in but didn't have yet. The rushees provided pics and their resume to Panhellenic when they signed up, and PH gave that info to each chapter. So we'd take that info, and could usually find an alum in their town who either knew them or knew the family, or worst case...knew someone who knew the family. Anyway...it just helped to ensure you had the kind of girls you wanted wearing the letters.

 

[MissCongeniality]

But see...it wasn't meaningless when done properly! I was in college the same time as you, but at a large SEC school. Our nationals most definitely required recs, and we had a whole committee of girls, starting after the second round, whose job it was to collect recs for girls we were interested in but didn't have yet. The rushees provided pics and their resume to Panhellenic when they signed up, and PH gave that info to each chapter. So we'd take that info, and could usually find an alum in their town who either knew them or knew the family, or worst case...knew someone who knew the family. Anyway...it just helped to ensure you had the kind of girls you wanted wearing the letters.

This was my experience as well (cough.. back in the 80s) on the West Coast at a large university. I have no idea how much the recs helped my daughter this last year going through rush. It will be interesting to hear from her now that she will be "on the other side" (She has a straight up-blonde (sorry, but there's no other real way to say it. 4.0 student who wrote that Elle Woods was her idol for at least one of her college apps)- way of saying everything that will make me laugh for hours!)