Hi Im attending Clemson this coming fall and am planning on rushing. I am a little unfamiliar with it and extremely nervous, because no one in my family has been apart of greek life. I was also wondering how important letters of rec are and if anyone is an alum of any of the following sororities: ZTA, ADPI, KKG, XO, AXO, APHI, DDD, KD, SK, DZ, PBP, GPHI, THETA… would be willing to write me one (Id be able to send you my resume and all other information). Im really nervous and don’t have anyone to really ask about this study. Anything will help.
Not all schools require rec letters. My D has a friend who is at Clemson and I don’t recall her needing to get letters. I know some of the schools in the south require them but I don’t believe Clemson is one of them.
At schools were they are not required they typically don’t do a whole lot for you. They can make a sorority aware of your interest but outside of that, unless a rec is coming from a recent alumni of that chapter it just won’t carry a whole lot of weight.
My best advice is to work on your conversational skills, think of rush like speed dating. You get a very short time to connect with the two or three actives you meet in your opening rounds and if you get invited back will be based mainly on that interaction. Don’t just wing your answers, anticipate the common questions and practice your answers.
I don’t think my D understood the importance of this aspect until this past year when she was on the other side of the process. She said the girls who could carry a conversation she recommended to move forward, the ones who couldn’t she didn’t. It really came down to conversations in the later rounds plus how that person could best help the chapter the best.
You can also ask the panhellenic association in your city for help. Ours has a tea or lunch for high school students interested in rushing and then has a form for them to fill out to ask for recommendations from each house. You can also send a request to the national headquarters and it will probably have someone sending recommendations.
The rule for my house (nationally) is that anyone with a recommendation must be invited to at least one party, but that’s usually the rule at every campus anyway, so the letter doesn’t change anything. Clemson, being a southern school, may want to see those recommendations but they really aren’t anything more than what is on your resume that is submitted to each house as part of the Recruitment Registration forms.