<p>(Paging ahphimommy and other sorority alums: please chime in!!)</p>
<p>A resume for sorority recruitment/rush is a little different from a resume you’d submit for a job.
Sorority alumnae are filling in blanks on their recommendation forms, so what they need is:
Full name “Mary Katherine Smith”
Nickname “Katie”
Home address (not college address)
Your option to add home/cell phone - helpful if your rec writer has a question
High school, city high school is in (Decatur High in Alabama? Decatur High in Georgia?)
Graduation year
Final grade - what scale (3.0? 4.0? 5.0?)- ACT store - SAT score
If you’re an upperclassman, what school did you previously attend? GPA? Major? What class will you enter as?
Honors?
Scholarships?
Activities? Officer positions?
Jobs - hobbies - volunteer & church work - list everything! If you will be a cheerleader, in an honors program, majorette, in band etc, at college please list that, too.
Parents’ names - parents’ colleges - I ask about their work, too
Female relatives in sororities - list name, relationship, sorority and campus
Example: Mary Cynthia Smith - mother - Alpha Beta at Big University; Taylor Smith - stepsister - Gamma Delta at Private College; Edna Smith - grandmother - Epsilon Zeta Eta at Outta State College; Jordan Jones - cousin - Theta Iota - Downtheroad College</p>
<p>PICTURE TIPS
Sororities use pictures to identify PNMs/rushees. They will often try to match a rusher with a rushee by hometown, interest, major - it helps them have something to talk about and get acquainted. The picture helps the rusher make sure she has the right person!
Picture submitted with resumes should be:
Head and shoulders - maybe to waist
Show the face clearly
Hair styled in an everyday style
Make sure it’s a flattering picture and looks like your lovely self!
If you also submit a full-body picture, try to make sure the photo shows the face.
PLEASE, NO TO:
Photos with more than one person (which one is the rushee??)
Photos with a boyfriend or date, or brother, or sister, or parents
Prom photos are discouraged because special make-up, hair, etc tend to make the subject look very different from what they will look like during recruitment. But if you have a great prom/pageant photo, send it.
Photos taken from a distance - if the face isn’t clearly identifiable, the picture is useless for this purpose.</p>
<p>TIP YOU MIGHT NOT THINK OF
Actual photos are often stapled and re-stapled many times. Consider sending a photo with a border. And make sure the photo is not so close-up that a staple hole will go through a forehead!</p>
<p>Southlander…you did a great job!!!
As far as resumes go I know several rec forms that ask about AP’s, dual enrollment and honors classes. Make sure that you put whether you GPA is weighted or unweighted.
Add your email address.
There’s been a lot of discussion about whether to put your Facebook address, twitter account ect on your resume. I currently don’t have girls do this. Truth is the sororities are very savvy at finding this info anyway…I do think the day is going to come when it is something that will be a must add…just a matter of time.
Don’t forget to add the year(s) (2009,2010, 2011, 2012) or grade(s) (9,10,11,12) for each item listed under Honors and Awards, Activities, Philanthropy/Volunteer.
Don’t use year and grade…choose one and be consistent. Alums who are writing your recs and sororities are looking for longevity. They are looking for girls who begin an activity ect and continue it for one than one year. If a PNM lists many activities ect but only does them one year and moves on it send a message to the sorority that perhaps they will treat sorority life the same way…we call it “one and done”.
When doing a resume many PNMs want to add lengthy explanations about each and every entry. You don’t need to! If an alum has a question she will contact you. In many cases the sorority woman who reviews your rec and resume may be from your part of the country and will be familiar with the terminology used.
The exception is if you have founded your own philanthropy cause, non-for-profit or club/organization. Go ahead an put a SMALL explanation.
I can’t stress enough…LIST EVERYTHING!!! I look at so many resumes and one of the biggest comments I make is “Don’t sell yourself short”. If you were in National Honor Society make sure you list all of the philanthropy that you participated in. Same goes with clubs, church groups ect.
Lots of girls leave off hobbies and interests. This is an important section! On many rec forms there is a question that asks what the PNM would like to talk about…as an alum I immediately refer to this section of the resume.
I would also add if you are unsure about whether your resume has all the components needed reach out to an alum, your local panhellenic…find someone who is familiar to what a sorority resume should look like and ask for their help. I look at lots of recs each year and give feedback to PNMs as I am sure many other alums who post here do as well (southlander???)
A far as pics go…southlander is again right on point.
If you are sending a full body shot of you in your prom dress with an updo then please send a headshot with you hair down :).
Make sure that on the back of each picture you put you whole name, high school and home town. I would suggest printing stickers and attaching them to the back. Sometimes when you write with ball point pen it makes indentations on the front and marker can smear and be hard to read.
Try a resist any major hair changers before recruitment. A hair trim is great but cutting and getting bangs, going from long to short, coloring …anything that makes you look different from the pics you sent in is not helpful to you! Last year I had a girl go through at another school and the day before she left she dyed her hair red!!!<br>
I would add one more thing about recs…please be considerate when asking alums to write you a recommendation. I cannot tell you how many girls will email me on June 30th when recs are due July 1 and ask if I will write them a rec. Recommendations take time to write. I love to write recs for girls but I gotta tell you I am inclined to say “no” when a PNM waits until the last hour of the last day.</p>
<p>Thank you ahphimommy! This bears repeating:
ON THE BACK OF EACH PICTURE, PUT YOUR WHOLE NAME, HIGH SCHOOL AND HOME TOWN</p>
<p>Re Facebook, Twitter, etc: Yes, you will be sought out. Clean it up! But please leave enough info to identify you. Leave your high school and home town, and where you’re going to college. You wouldn’t believe how many duplicate names there are out there. You want us to find the right person!</p>
<p>If you were in a high school sorority, please DO put it down, especially if you were an officer. High school and college sororities are vastly different in how they operate and what they do. But the fact that you were in one means you can function as part of a group, and if you were an officer, we know you can handle responsibility.</p>
<p>If you want to know some helpful websites for more info, please PM me or ahphimommy. There are a lot of good ones out there…and a few not so good. ;)</p>
<p>Just go with the above comment. Last year we had a ooppss!!! and a huge pile of recs toppled over. We had several pictures of girls that did not have names, high schools, home towns on the back. We had no way of knowing what pics went with what rec. We ended up trying to find girls who had talked to these girls during invite weekend and then cross referenced with pics they had scanned in with panhellenic. It was a mess! We also had two girls who had the exact same name and were from the same home town, both were blondes and looked very much alike. Thankfully they had put their high schools on the back as well (they had attended different high schools)…in fact the University even got these two mixed up. they had both interviewed for a particular program and the wrong one was admitted! Remember those stickers ladies!!</p>
<p>Bumping 'cuz this could help.</p>
Hi my niece will be attending UA in the fall and wants to join a sorority, I am trying to help her begin the process and would be very grateful to anyone who can help with info. I know this thread is a little old but is it still accurate? Any pointers on letters of recommendation? Content? Are they required?
Thanks so much in advance for your help:)
I LOVE it when people on CC go through old threads that had very valuable tips and bump them to see if it is all still current. It shows you are doing your homework. =D> There are many other threads regarding sorority stuff, too. Good luck with your niece’s decisions, @loulou13!
loulou13; instruct your niece to join the Sorority recruitment page on FB for herself. Ask a parent to join the Sorority Recruitment Page for adults. The information there is invaluable. And more current than this.
Hi Lulu, yes, everything is still the same! There are 2 Alabama sorority parents pages: Alabama Sorority Recruitment Moms (and dads) and Bama Sorority Moms and Dads. Nice folks on both pages - join either or both!
You’ll also want to join one of the general U of Alabama parent pages (there are 3!) and the UA Class of 2020 page.
Thank you for the info. I will tell my niece to join. Looks like we have a lot to learn. Question about letters of rec. How important are they? Someone told me she needs one for each house. Will she be overlooked without one?
Recommendations are required, the general rule of thumb is 2 per sorority. That is 32 recommendations to be obtained before July 1st. The FB pages have lots of instructions on how to obtain them, what to include in the packets, where to send them, etc. There are a few stories of girls who did not get recs, or only got a few, and still got a house. However, there are 2500 girls in recruitment, and your niece needs to be able to tell “her story” through her recs, her application, and her meetings with the girls in the houses. Without recs, its an easy way to get cut from many of the sororities. However, note the although the UA Greek system is the largest in the US, if you get your recs, maximize your selections each round, and play by the rules of the process, there is a 91% placement rate of girls into houses.
Thank you for the info. I will tell my niece to join. Looks like we have a lot to learn. One question. We know a member from a handful of the sororities on campus who would write recs but how do you get recs if you don’t know anyone who was a member of a chapter let alone 2 per chapter?
@loulou13; I would once again heavily encourage you to join the sorority FB pages and open the Files tab at the top of the pages. In the files, there are lots of advice on recommendations, recruitment process, what to wear, etc. More than you can read in a day! The secret of recommendations is to network across everyone you know–teachers, people at church, people at work, recent college graduates who were Greek, moms of your daughter’s friends, etc. Put a note on your personal FB page announcing her desire to go through recruitment, and ask for people who are Greek to help out. You will be amazed how when you start talking about it, people you had no idea were Greek participated in college–or their Mom did, or their aunt did, etc. Another contact point is to reach out the Panhellenic Alumni Council in your geography. These exists a lot of places, and if your niece meets with them, they are often willing to write recommendations. Some have very formal processes for doing this, others are very casual. Once again, join the FB pages, open the Files tab at the top, and start reading.
Let me add that the FAcebook pages we’re talking about are the moms’ pages - Bama Sorority Moms and Dads and Alabama Sorority Recruitment Moms. There are at least 2 pages for the girls, but they don’t have the same resources.