I am planning on rushing at at The University of Alabama in the fall of 2016. I am from Iowa and do not have a lot of family or friends who are familiar with sororities. I am beginning to prepare recommendation packets to be sent out and I have a few questions.
I am including 2 wallet size photos, a resume, an addressed envelope, an unofficial transcript, and a note to be sent to me when the rec has been filled out. Anything I am missing? Do I need a cover letter?
Is it too early to send these out yet, what is the earliest that you would send them out?
Answers and any other advice are appreciated! Thank you!!
I’m going to quote a friend of mine who posted on the Greekchat website. Her advice is on point: "You need a cover letter to the alum thanking her in advance for writing the rec. I would give them to the alums in January. They can send them up until about the first to middle of June at the latest. (actually late June is OK, but the earlier the better)
You will need 2 for each of the 16 groups. Quite a few of those are at schools in Iowa so you should be able to network and find them all. Make a list of all college educated women you know (teachers, employers, parents’ friends,neighbors, etc). Ask if they are a sorority member or if they know any. If someone agrees to write a rec, ask if they know someone else in their group who could write you one or anyone in any other groups.
THEN,ask the men you know (teachers, coaches, etc) if their wives,mothers, sisters,daughters are members and go thru the same process. You have to work all your connections."
Let me add - please do NOT send wallet sized photos. Send at least 4" x 6" or even 5" x 7." And don’t send 2 of the same photos. 2 different poses would be nice, but not necessary. 1 is OK as long as it clearly shows your face. Please don’t send a photo of you in prom attire, or with your boyfriend, or with your horse. Just you.
These photos are enlarged onto big screens. Wallet-sized photos (or even more awful - Facebook photos) will not yield a clear, sharply focused enlarged photo.
Good luck - Roll Tide!
@Southlander Just curious - you’ve outlined this process about getting recs, but do you know what happens if you rush without any recommendation letters? The UA Panhellenic website seems to indicate that they aren’t required and D was not planning to get any.
D and I have looked at the UA Panhellenic website and it says:
“Securing letters of recommendation is ultimately NOT the obligation of the potential new member, so below are a couple of things to keep in mind if you choose to seek out letters of recommendation” and then
“If you cannot find a letter of rec for each of the 17 NPC sororitites recognized at UA, please do not worry! Recs are like extra credit—it’s great if you can get them, but they are not required by all chapters. If a sorority really wants to pledge someone and they have a policy that requires a PNM have at least one recommendation/reference form in order to be eligible for membership, they will find a recommendation for her. They won’t let her get away just because she can’t find her own recommendation!”
There is a section about assistance with getting rec and it says “As a reminder Potential New Members are NOT required to secure recommendations in order to receive a bid.”
We have looked at all this and thought is meant that you didn’t really need to do all this that you have described.
By not having a rec you automatically make it easier for a house to cut you.
Sure, there are a few that do receive a bid for a house that they did not have a rec for.
The chapter will reach out to a alum that will write a rec for that PNM.
By having a rec for the chapter it lets the members of the houses know more about them on a personal level from someone that knows them. More of a character reference than what is in the packet with the resume that the PNM will send to UA Panhellenic to be used at houses they do not have a rec for. Having that rec creates a quick reference and connection.
Now, if you fall short and have a house or 2, maybe 3 that you have no recs for, do NOT sweat it. My DD did not have recs for 3 houses and was perfectly fine and received a bid, to a house she had recs for. Heck, she was even cut from a legacy house that she had FIVE recs for.
Sorry, I can not recommend any PNM going into UA recruitment without bothering to get recs.
D is not 100% sold on rushing. She really likes the idea of being in a sorority but find the whole rushing thing to be very intimidating. This rec process seems designed to keep girls out that didn’t grow up in that type of family. She has considered waiting until sophomore year to rush when she might know girls in a sorority who would be more likely to try to pull her in even if she doesn’t have any connections.
Sororities are just not that popular where we live and with those we know. She hasn’t scoured every possible avenue to find recs, but have checked all our friends, neighbors and extended family and have managed to come up with two people we are aware of who were in a sorority. These two are a distant cousin of my husbands who lives in another state and the other is her sorority sister who is the mother of one of the boys on my son’s soccer team. Neither of these two have ever met my D. It seems we would need to push things further out to come up with any more. How can people write credible recommendations for someone they have never met and have no direct connection to? Obviously she can arrange a meeting with the local soccer mom and maybe skype with the cousin, but that just gets her two recs in one sorority. It really seems like a very strange exercise to go through.
Our daughter had no Greek ties in our family. She wanted to rush at UA. We understood that recommendations were part of the requirements. Here’s what we did–first we asked everyone we knew. She actually got quite a few recommendations via her school–teachers, parents and alumni of her high school. She asked at church, and got a couple. She asked friends’ moms, and friends of friends moms. Then she turned to her older sister at another SEC school (athlete, non Greek) and asked for her Greek friends to help, and their moms helped too. Then she asked her aunt to reach out to her Junior League friends, and they helped. I reached out to my friends, and they, and their families wrote recs. Then I reached out to a few select people at work and they and their daughters wrote recommendations…and so on. Finally, we were down to about 6 recommendations left from 5 sororities. We then contacted our Panhellic office in our city–and they required that she meet with them, have tea, and then individually the women agreed to write recommendations for her. She met for a lot of coffee with these ladies to get it done.
So it was a lot of work, and a large commitment–and the demonstrated commitment to each chapter of the sororities is part of the effort.
However…so is the rest of recruitment:
Assembling the necessary outfits based on each day’s activities (they guide you through this process with a book called GreekChic available on the UA Panhellenic website
Working all summer to pay for her sorority dues
Assembling the necessary items for recruitment week so that she can manage the long days of recruitment
Committing to the “hoops” you must jump through in following the rules of recruitment
Committing to the pledge training, mandatory meetings, and required study hours each week
So I would encourage you and your daughter to understand the time and financial commitments before you dive into the process. However, I will say that my daughter did complete recruitment, pledged, and was initiated into a sorority at UA, and she has thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the girls in her sorority. All four girls in her suite rushed; she was the only one that completed the process. The other three have all been sad that they did not stick it out–and all are going through recruitment again in the Fall as sophomores.
Recommendations from close family and friends are best, but if those don’t exist start reaching out further to gain the recs you need. Think of this a little like a “check the box” for the first hurdle of recruitment. This process is in no way designed to keep OOS girls out of recruitment, rather to ensure a level of commitment on the girl’s part to the recruitment process. If you actually review the OOS stats for UA recruitment they are phenomenal–highly inclusive to out of state girls. (Very, very different than other SEC and ACC schools in the South.)
I hope this helps you gain some perspective on the process. However, I do agree with the poster above that says, I cannot, in good faith, recommend going through recruitment without recommendations.
You can of course rush with no recs. A few sororities may automatically drop her with no rec.
What a rec does is tell the sorority a little bit more about your daughter, and add a vouch for her character from a member. Having a rec MIGHT get her a second look from a group, maybe an invitation back to the second round. At one time we did not ask girls to do this, we sent out the info to our alums in that area and asked them to check out the girl. And many of us still do that. But when you have 2200 or more going through, you just don’t have the time and manpower to do it all, so we ask the girls to take care of this.
All Panhellenics will state that they’re not required. But the truth is, we need them. Could she pledge a group without a rec? Yes. But why chance it?
If you had a rigorous exam coming up, wouldn’t you try to study a little extra for it? Same thing. At the same time, she can learn a little more about each group by doing her research.
And it is NOT designed to keep women out. It’s actually designed to help them, especially women without the built-in family and friend connections enjoyed by in-state girls. Recs do not have to come from alumnae of the Alabama chapters of a sorority. Just from members of that sorority, no matter what chapter they initiated at.
Follow what swim4school has said. This is what my daughter did as well as myself and we are out of state. I was not in Greek at my school, we did not have any Greek houses at my all female college. My sister is and that was one rec.
My daughter started talking to her high school teachers and counselors, found a good number of recs there. Amazingly, a lot of teachers were in sororities.
I then posted on my FB page something like this and tagged my daughter and husband so that all of our friends would see the post and could help:
My daughter, SusieQ will be attending the University of Alabama this coming fall. She intends to go thru sorority recruitment and is in need of recommendation letters.
If you were a member of a sorority and could help in SusieQ with her recommendation letters it would be much appreciated.
You can PM me or reply below.
Thank you
That was able to get a lot more recs from good friends we had no clue were in a sorority. Also, every single time you talk to someone make sure to mention that she is interested in joining a sorority and she is looking for ladies to write recs for her. Bring it up all the time. There are a lot more people out there that are alums of sororities, they just may not wear their letters all the time now.
Also, google and see if there are any Panhellenic chapters in your area. They will be holding information meetings very soon. Have her register and attend this meeting. There are a lot of girls at UA that are in sororities from these areas that have been called, “It’s just not popular here” than you can imagine. They all came in with recs, so they are out there. I am in Texas and like I said, good friends we had known for 15+ years were in sororities and we had no clue!
I would not even attempt to go thru recruitment without recs. It is not meant to discourage OOS girls as plenty of OOS girls are members of sororities. My daughters house is like 60% OOS. She has friends from all over the country that are sorority sisters. My sister had to have rec letters back 25+ years ago at her school in Texas and we did not know anyone. It was us all talking to friends, coworkers, neighbors, teachers, etc that she found them back then and that was before the internet. When she meets with her counselor soon, have her bring it up. I would also email as many former and current teachers and let them know she is going to UA and going thru recruitment and needing recs. Being these would be from people that would know her character very well, those are great recs.
@swim4school Around what time did your daughter reach out to your local Panhellenic to gather those remaining recs? I need about 8 more that I’m missing… Thanks!!
@southernbound18–I would say “it depends.” We were from a Midwest area, where the Panhellenic met once a month, and we got lucky that our daughter made contact prior to the April meeting–which was the last meeting of the year for them (until September). Some Panhellenics have organized meetings for PNMs, teas, or other functions. I’d reach out to your local Panhellenic and see what the process is for your location. In our case, our daughter attended their April meeting, did “meet and greet” with all the members, handed out packets to anyone willing to write recs (even for sororities we already had 2 recs for) and then met specifically in the next 2-3 weeks with some of the ladies who wanted to know her better prior to writing their recommendation. She went to about 4 Starbucks “get to know you” coffee meetings. If you do not get a response by emailing your Panhellenic, call them–some of these ladies are older, and not very e-mail intense.