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Digisign community service letter of recommendation

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hey guys welcome back to my channel it's Florence so today it's the second episode in my sorority rush series so if you missed the first one I'll link it right up here and also down the description bar below just so you can view that basically it was just going over my rush experience and any like first-time questions that you guys had about rushing this video is going to be all about sorority rec letters so this is something that I could not find a video on whenever I was rushing and it drove me crazy because I had to do a ton of research on I really didn't know if I was doing anything right so I'm here to answer you guys question and show you everything that I put into my req letter so you feel a little bit more prepared disclaimer I'm going to go ahead and put this out there go ahead and look up your specific University your panel Inuk Association your specific sororities that you're sending these rec letters to and make sure that you're sending the right information so just because I set this information to someone does not mean that this is the only information you can send or the right information for you to send I just wanted to show you mine to give you a little bit of an idea of how I made them what I put on them how they looked everything like that but like I said if you have any specific questions you can contact your Panhellenic Association over the summer or right now during the spring probably and just ask them any questions and see what they can answer so if you're new here I'm a PI pi at the University of Alabama also if you want to see my like rush week vlog that was me literally just vlogging every single day of rush showing you what I was wearing and everything that way you kind of see my experience going through rush firsthand I'm sure that different universities have different requirements for their records and what they require to have on them but with all the information that I researched and everything I felt like this was my best rec letter that I could have put on there so I asked the questions on my Instagram and I wanted to go ahead and address these questions before we get going and me showing you everything just in case that you have the same questions that these girls have okay so this is like an overall general question that I get a lot is our rec letters required and I'm going to tell you know but it is highly encouraged I would encourage everyone to get one to two rec letters per house and I know that's a little bit difficult a little bit later in this video I'm going to be telling you how to get these letters and who to contact for this you should try to get one to two per house that's just my opinion if you want to go into rush and not have any reckless that is completely up to you because they are not required you definitely should consider getting some rep letters so another question that I have been getting asked is how many do you need what I share figuring in my head was that there were seventeen sororities at UA I knew that I wanted to get one to cheer hecklers per house so I times seventeen by two so 17 times two is 34 so after I had that 34 I thought okay well what if I get two rec letters for every house but I have more people wanting to send in a rec letter for me then I added in I think like three or four extra on top of that so I'm pretty sure I ended up getting 40 copies of everything this can be pretty pricey depending on what you want and what you have in mind for your rec letters but you can do it on a budget I know that I did so be sure to look at your university see how many houses there are and try to aim for 1 to 2 per house so one question that keeps getting asked is how do you find people to write these rec letters for you and if you're not involved in Greek life what do you do how do you find people because a lot of people think that it's going to be difficult to get into a house if you're not a legacy if your family hasn't been a part of a sorority and that is false so I came from a non Greek life family no one in my family has rush like not even the extended family was ever in a sorority so I was a first generation like Greek life I guess basically what I did is I put out on Facebook a post and I just asked like you know I wrote like this cute little thing like you know saying that I was going through Alabama formal recruitment and that I was looking for rec letters I made the post public and I let everyone know like please share please tag please let me know if you have anyone to write these rec letters I had a lot of people that I knew that were like parents of other kids that I had been in theater or cheerleading or whatever with that we're willing to write my rec letters but when they knew that I needed more rec letters they told me oh hey my college roommates were in these sororities do you need rec letters for them I would go ahead and send them the packet and have everything done where I didn't know those people but they knew that I was a good person because of what that person had said if that makes any sense so basically it's a lot of word-of-mouth type thing but be sure to put it on a Facebook post I know that my Facebook has like older type not viewers but like how do I explain this older people who would like be able to write a rec letter and I'm pretty sure so this is also something that you have to look for because some universities let active members write a rec letter for you some don't so be sure to look into that and I think it's kind of sorority specific or university specific I'm not sure but to clarify your answer be sure to look on your university or your sorority specifics and find that out so that is just something to keep in mind also that they probably do have to be an alumni of the chapter another question that I got a lot is did I have a rec lair for Python yes I did have a rec letter for pi PI I only had one though I did not have two I had never met this person a day in my life I offered to go and meet her and sit down for a cup of coffee and just like let her know me a little bit better and that is what I did with literally anyone and everyone even if it was people that I knew I made sure to take the time out to try and schedule something if they wanted to talk a little bit with me that's something that a lot of women did take me up on they're like yeah come to my office let's go to Starbucks let's do whatever for them to get to know me just a little bit better because they are running you a wreck letter you wanted to be personal and you want it to be like they really know you and so sitting down at that time and telling them anything new and telling them why you're excited to rush and why you're interested in the chapter that they graduated from means a lot to them as well so someone else asked which I've never gotten this question she said wait don't you only need them if you're a legacy my campus only does rec letters for legacy so again this is campus and I guess University specific Alabama that's not a role so someone else asks how do you ask people you're not super close with and don't see often so again going back to meeting them or if they're in a different state and you can't meet with them did it like a FaceTime call our our phone call letting them know a little bit about you or even sending them a very detailed email that's what I did for a lot of people whose work schedules really didn't work out and they were already taking their time out of their day to write this rec letter for me it was a very long email it was going through stuff that was on my resume just kind of expanding on her a little bit more so if I said that I did this community service I would go more into detail what I did during that community service how I liked it what happened everything like that so I'll just elaborate a little bit more on it I would talk about your major why you're going to that university why you're deciding to rush and again thank them over and over again because they're taking their time out of their day so literally help you and I'm so grateful for every single woman that wrote me by rec letters okay so someone where do you send the letters and do you send them as they come in or all at once so I'm pretty sure what she's asking which this is something that I was kind of weird about too which I will explain a little bit more whenever I'm going into detail about everything that I put into it so basically you do not send out the req letters yourself the person writing your req letter they will send it out for you so with that being said make sure that you have posted on your envelopes and everything that they needs they don't have to pay for anything at all whenever you're handing that to them they literally should be able just to write your req letter put it in there seal it and set it off to the University some sororities require an online rep you don't want paper copies they don't want anything sent to their house they want everything digitally if you decide to make your own req letter be sure that everything can be sent in a PDF form so that way it's easy for them to open it to edit it do whatever they want they know what to do I have never written a req letter for anybody so I honestly don't know the specifics about it and everything that they do they know what to do but I'm going to be going into like more details like what to put on the outside and everything like that someone else asks does it have to be someone in a sorority that you're looking at yes this might be different at different universities again look at that I know the University of Alabama it has to be chapter specific so I had to pick an alumni at Pi Beta Phi to write my rec letter now they didn't have to go to the University of Alabama they literally could have gone anywhere as long as they were an alum of Pi Phi same goes for any other sorority on campus they've had to have been part of that sorority I'm pretty sure they had to have graduated from the sorority but don't hold me to that somebody else asked what do you do if the person you asked to write your rec doesn't and you're short on time so this is the time that you need to start planning is right now girl start planning start getting your colors can start getting your resume together headshots anything and everything start getting it together now because the deadline is coming up sooner than you realize so I started sending out my rec letters like everything posting about them in May so I made sure to contact everyone I have like a spreadsheet out I had their numbers I had their contact information anything and everything because you also want to follow up with the people who write you the rec letters and send them a thank-you note it'll be in the world to them trust me this is when you have to start practicing time management because the ball is in your court so this is all up to you at this point if you give them ample time and they have like a month to write your rec letter perfect but be sure to follow up with them if you give them your packet like face to face you won't know if it gets sent or not unless you contact this person and they have a busy life to keep that in mind they're taking the time out of their day and their work life to write this rec letter so what I did is after about two weeks I would contact the people who I gave my resume and everything to and I asked them like hi I'm just checking in to see if you have the chance to send in my req letter packet I have a bellow as well if you have any questions please let me know and at that time they'd be like oh thank you so much for reminding me like I'm doing it right now or they're like yeah I sent it in the mail they got it you're all good to go good luck Russia be sure to follow up to make sure but also be sure you give them enough time to write your rep letters someone asks is it awkward asking for a wreck letter I thought this would be so true but it really isn't it is not awkward whatsoever just because they probably had to do the same thing whenever they were rushing or their daughters or our nieces or anything like that and a lot of time they are writing a lot of rec letters during this time of the year so if you don't know anybody in the sorority that you're wanting to get a wrestler in ask around if you go on your panel Inuk website they probably have oh my goodness I know for Alabama at least they had some sort of tab and it was like a Facebook group or something that you could click and it would like bring you up to this group where you could ask for certain rec letters so if that is the questions that I got on my Instagram so now we are going to be getting into what mine look like and how you can make yours if you want a full-on tutorial on it like how to make an actual resume like the layout that I did it let me know because I don't really know if that would be like interesting or it would help anybody because I'm guessing a lot of you are going to buy yours from a company I personally me and my friends made it and then made it into a PDF form but anyways I'm going to be telling you what I got and everything like that so just bear with me right now okay so first thing that you're gonna need is an envelope so you know your girl got a hot pink envelope I decided to go with the color scheme of pink and kind of worked out my favorite kind of didn't because the Pink's clashed and it drove me crazy and I'm sure it drove a lot of girls crazy that we're receiving my wreck letters in the mail but just be sure to stick with the color palette and it's gonna look really cute also be sure you get the big envelopes the second thing that you need is a folder so don't try and get one with like the prong folder those just like aren't really cute in my opinion get one with like double-sided little pockets so this is a little pink print I got both of these off of Amazon by the way be sure to know your measurements of your folder before buying your envelope because your girl did the mistake by the envelopes before buying this and it didn't fit because regular envelopes don't fit this I'm not talking about like you know little tiny envelopes obviously but they were like big envelopes like this but this is like a specific size and I'm not sure what it is but just be sure to compare them these work ricey because I wanted the colored ones which is stupid I shouldn't have paid that much money but you can find this stuff on Amazon okay so these are two things that you really need to have or at least what I have okay so this will go into this okay so it'll be really cute and it's really easy to carry around also another thing I really don't recommend these because these if they shut they go ahead and tape down and I knew that I couldn't take them down because the woman that was writing the wreck letter had to have this like open to be sure to like keep an eye out for that as well okay so something that I did a little bit different was that I made stickers to go on the outside of this so I'm sure that you can print these if you have a printer or you can probably go to like Office Depot or something and have your name printed on this I personally got a sticker I chose a Lilly Pulitzer powder because I love Lilly Pulitzer the border was Lilly Pulitzer and then on the inside it just says Lauren Norris and that is what was right here so then whenever you opened it up on this side I would put my transcript and then my resume and then right here I would put my headshot so this is the headshot that I use for sorority recruitment looking back at it I wish I wouldn't have used it hated that pink dress I hated how that picture turned out but it just kind of now just lurks around me but you're gonna want to make sure that you have a headshot again different universities and different sororities might ask you to send like a full body and a half body in a headshot I think that's a little excessive and I know I didn't do that and I just sent in one headshot but again look it up because they might want you to do that so on this end was all the important information that was going to go to the sorority but on this side I would put my thank-you letter I'm going to be putting my thank-you letter again I don't have a copy of it but I have the digital copy of it still on my computer I'm going to move over so I can put it right here but basically what I said and it was just thank you for writing this recommendation letter and I was just letting them know like I was attending Alabama and what my major was going to be and that I was still looking forward to going through sorority recruitment and then I told them what they would find enclosed in here I had my resume my high school transcript my headshot a pre address and stamped envelope and I said after you have completed your recommendation letter please print it off and include it with the information I have provided they know to take this like little thank-you letter out and like keep it or throw it away or whatever and then I make sure to tell them the deadline of when I needed this done and sent in so I actually made the deadline earlier than when it actually was just in case they decided to like mail it out on that day I wanted to make sure that all my records were sent in pretty early and again I put my contact information everything letting them know that if they had any questions or any problems just let me know so that is the whole thing that was in this I promise I'm going to be getting into what I put on my resume in a second also something to go along with your headshot dos something that I did which you can like write your name on the back of it but I just wanted to be like bougie I guess so on the back of my headshot I flipped it over I had another sticker and it was like a little circular sticker and it basically just had my initials and then on top of it it said Lauren Norris if my headshot got mixed up with anything they could flip on the back and know that oh this was Lauren Norris once you have everything enclosed and you are ready to give it to the person that is going to be writing your rec letter obviously you're going to be putting it in your envelope I know that I found this on the Alabama Panhellenic website I'm not sure what it's going to be for any other University but they will have the person to contact and send your rec letters to for every single sorority they will have a list if you can't find it online I'm sure that if you call them they'll be able to help you but basically you are going to put it right here again I made this a sticker because it was way easier for me then rather writing it and I didn't want my handwriting to look sloppy or anything I just printed these off and then just plaster it right here so you know it'll say like I'm just gonna use Pi Phi because that's I am so it'll say PI they defy and then I'll say like attention whoever it was and then the address that they give you be sure that these are already addressed so this is something that the person that's writing your rep letter doesn't have to do then you're going to be putting your return address so again I made these again everything was just a little letter pattern and it had my home address so just in case anything happened it was being sent back to me where I could figure out if I had the address wrong or anything like that you're going to be wanting to put postage on these also for reference I think I put two regular stamps per envelope and everything was fine I just wanted to be safe so I put two stamps on them so that is what I personally put in here if you want to add a little bit more a little bit more flair whatever you do you so now I'm going to be getting into what to put on your resume and I'm just going to be like blurring out like personal information I'm going to be looking right here because I have my computer and like my resume is pulled up of course you see the Lilly Pulitzer border around there that was my pattern like my go-to color scheme for this whole entire thing so everything involved that the stickers my resume my thank-you everything okay so basically at the top where I'm blurring out basically the first square I put my address the middle square I put my phone number the last little square right there I put my email address again this is just what I put on there if you want to change it up and you want to do a completely different layout be my guest this is just all that I have and I didn't want to pull some random one from the internet I wanted to show you mine personally and what I sent in there first thing I have is education and I just kept seeing this on a lot of different ones I don't really know if this is like needed but I did it anyways basically I just put the University of Alabama and then I put what I'm going to be graduating with so basically I put like bachelor in and then I put my major and then I put expected to graduate May at 2023 so then underneath it I put my high school I put graduated in May 2017 and then I put my high school GPA underneath it again you're going to be sending them your transcript so they're going to see your GPA they're going to see your AC T scores everything like that but I just really wanted to put it on here because it just made me feel better and I just felt like if I had my GPA on there it would has made me feel now also to go along with that your transcript has your social security number on it be sure to either wipe that out or put like sharpie over it that way like if this gets lost in the mail or anything and someone happens to open it they will not have your social security number or the person that's writing you your req letter they won't have your social security number I did not realize this until about like 15 rec letters in that I had been sending everyone my social security number so that was really not okay okay and right under education I have awards and honors so basically I just put my awards and honors so I was a distinguished young woman of my County but I basically just went in like Ava's president of the drama club I was SGA Secretary on the other column it has activities so I put what I did as my activities um because I did this st. Jude walk for several years I competed in Miss Alabama so I put that I was a national qualifier and community theater and actually shortly after this I was a nationally awarded actress at this theatre conference so that was actually really cool but these had to be sent in before I won that Awards that kind of stuff also I own my own makeup company back at home I just put my company and that I was a makeup artist then I worked for a party entertainment business and I just put that right there as well in little section I put community service so this is something that you should have been doing all throughout high school but I just put on like when I roll interior for them everything like that at the very bottom I put my social handles at that time I only had my Instagram on my Facebook I had not started my youtube yet so I just put like my Instagram was the Laura Norris and then I went on Facebook and I changed way basically you can change like the end of your like little Facebook link to be something specific so I just put line dot P dot Norris something else to add for this is do not lie on your resume do not say that you did something when you did it because it is very likely that they might ask you about something that has been on your resume you lie about community service or your awards and honors or anything like that in the ask you a question like Oh what kind of community service have you done were you involved in high school and then if you say that no you didn't do either of those things but then your resume show that you did same little sketchy so last little tip if you're printing everything out I just printed everything out I like Office Depot and I had everything picked up it was really Parise they had everything together and I just spent one afternoon putting everything together but if you're sending them your RAC letter packet through email because I remember I think kayo and 80 pi required req letters through like their actual website I'm pretty sure those were the two at least I know it's kayo because this is the email I have pulled up but basically I just sent it to the woman that graduated as a kayo and I just said hey I have included my resume transcript headshot and a thank you note for you if you need anything please let me know so then I linked the kayo rec website because they had a specific recommendation website that they had to enter in and send their req letter through and then I also put the you ape analytic website just in case they had any like alabama panel in ike specific questions this makes it a little bit easier on them so that is all i really have for you right now i'm sure i'm going to be thinking of different things as i am editing this video but i think that sums it up a little bit and maybe gives you like a little bit of an insight about what to put in your rec letter what you need to know and how i format in mind but thank you guys so much for watching I hope that I answered some questions that you might have had be sure to comment down below if you have any more specific questions and I will try to help you the best that I can again I'm just reminding you that May 1st starts the no contact period so if you comment after May 1st I will not be able to respond back to you but I am looking forward to episode 3 of this series which will be released in the next week or the week after that I'm not really sure yeah I'm trying to get like a timeline of everything right now but again thank you so much for watching this video if you enjoyed it be sure to give it a big thumbs up and if you want to join the family you can click that subscribe button also I love you guys so much and I'll be seeing you in my next video bye [Music]