If you are a legacy, should you mention it?
 

My D will be going through rush in the fall, and I'm helping her line up recs, etc. so that she'll be all set when summer gets here. Things have changed a lot in the 30 years since I went through this. Fortunately for me, I was clueless about any of it and had a great rush experience! Since she is a legacy, is it something she should put in her resume? I'm sure it'll be somewhere on her registration, so I don't know that there's a need to call it out. I don't want other houses to release her thinking that she'll just want to go to her legacy house. She is going into rush (or recruitment--trying to use the new terminology!) with a very open mind, and truly wants to find the house that is the best fit for her. Should she mention it to actives when she rushes her legacy house, or assume they already know? (we always knew when we had legacies going through, so there was no need for them to bring it up) While I'd love to see her end up at my house, I don't want her to A) come across as obnoxious or expecting to get in (she knows better than that) and B), I don't want her to make other houses think she would not be interested in them if they find out her legacy status. Just really curious as to how/when/if to bring up legacy status. Any advice would be appreciated! She'll be at a larger SEC school with a fairly competitive (but not crazy) rush, BTW.

I can only speak for my sorority but we have a National Legacy Introduction Form that is to be completed and sent in with the reference (I do believe they can be sent in separately if necessary). That way the legacy can be vetted by the National organization and the chapter will know she is a legacy so she has no reason to mention it. The chapter will know.

Send a legacy form to her chapter. Don’t put it on registration form (like we did) or resume.
My daughter was flat out told by one house they didn’t ask her back because it was assumed she would pledge her legacy chapter, which she did not. True or not, she did have that suspicion.
If asked during a rush party there’s no need to lie, but she’ll be able to tell them herself and let them know she’s not set on it, etc.

This is helpful and confirms what I was thinking. I just looked at our reference form and it asks for legacy information there, so I don't think there is a separate legacy form. I do know that on the school's registration form for recruitment, it asks about any legacy connections. So it sounds like it's best to leave that blank? She'll have two refs for her legacy house--one from one of my pledge sisters and another from a friend who was in the actual chapter at the school she'll be attending.

I would advise to leave off her legacy information on the Panhellenic registration form. You are directly letting the legacy chapter know, that is all you need to do.

She should not worry about putting down her legacy on her form. The software UF uses for registration does not give out legacy information to the other chapters. However, our national recommendation form does request legacy information for the pmn. I am assuming that people she is asking for letters of recommendations know you and know that you were a Tri-Delta at UF.

@ggforever you bring up a good point--she will not be attending UF but the others who will be writing recs for her for other houses definitely know I'm UF TriDelta, so we should maybe ask that they not make any mention of her legacy status on their rec forms. The Tri-Deltas will of course fill out the legacy section on theirs, though.

My daughter just went through recruitment and while recs aren't as big of a thing, the legacy situation was interesting as she had an older sister who just graduated the year prior. While my younger D was open to her sister's house and mine, she didn't want any assumptions made for her.

So we did exactly what you expressed above and per the advice read on this site from all the wonderfully wise women here. We asked those who wrote her recs not to put any legacy status about her sister's chapter or mine on their forms. If she was asked, she, of course, would be honest. She ended up going to her sister's house and one other for pref round and ended up in the other house (which was her first choice).

OldFLDDD, I would never leave off the legacy information for any sponsor form I filled out. To do so is not fair to the chapter. Houses love to poach other legacies and having this information could assist them in recruiting. That is my opinion but I am sure others will feel differently.

Houses used to love to poach other legacies, but recruitment has become more high stakes and chapters are loathe to take a chance on a legacy, especially if the legacy sorority is highly sought after at the PNM's school. In the past ten years I have seen stellar legacies dropped because other chapters feared they would pledge the legacy house.

FSUZeta, that can be true but if the legacy is really highly sought after chapters will go for her. I guess the question is: Would you leave the legacy off a requested sponsor form?? I would not. I always try to give the chapter as much information about the pmn I can.

I am going to agree with ggforever. I would not omit information that I know to be true when writing a recommendation. I consider that a lie. And I think I would be offended if a PNM asked me to omit information.

keep in mind that different schools have different rules. If a legacy omits the legacy information when registering for recruitment through the university at the school I advise, then they are not treated as a legacy in the system.

ForeverRoses, when you say "not treated as a legacy in the system", what exactly do you mean by that? I'm confused now. The Tri Deltas will obviously know her status but that would be from the recs they'll receive ahead of time. And I guess there is some disagreement on whether or not it's good for the other houses to know where she's a legacy. I think some of this also comes down to how much of a "hot commodity" she is. I predict that she'll have a successful rush, but she's not going to be the girl everyone is going nuts over. I like to think that she'd be that, but I'm a realist!

At the campus I used to advise at, the PNMs would register online using the ICS Recruiter system. Panhellenic uses that automated system to generate PNM groups, party schedules, etc. The individual chapters use the system to input their invite lists and such. The PNM lists that are sent to the chapters by Panhellenic include "flags" for women who are legacies for that organization. In other words, if a PNM marked that she is a Gamma Phi Beta legacy on her registration form, that "flag" will show up next to her name in the list that is sent to us. We did not receive flags for legacy status at other sororities. I can't remember if it was possible for us to manually key in a legacy flag from the chapter's end or not. I believe it is; but, I am not 100% sure.

On the campus end, we could see all flags that the legacies had put in, including not only for chapters not on campus but for fraternities as well. You'd see a woman flagged as "Alpha Delta Pi legacy, Delta Zeta legacy, Sigma Phi Epsilon legacy". That always gave me a good chuckle-I was glad PNMs put their family relations down as members of other GLOs, but it was a little more than they needed.

What I mean is that we don't always get recommendations from the sister or Mom/Grandma telling us that they have a legacy going through. If we don't, but they put it down in ICS, then we can verify from that and treat them as legacies. Now if a mistake happens (such as if we accidentally release someone that is a legacy after open house rounds), if they have not registered in ICS as a legacy then we cannot "fix" a mistake. If they are in ICS as a legacy, Panhellenic has allowed us to invite them back.
There have been times when we get a recommendation, but it doesn't tell us that they are a legacy when they are. The PNM doesn't put it in ICS and then they are released. We then get angry phone calls/emails from Moms/Sisters/Grandmas about why we released their snowflake. In those cases, Panhellenic will not allow us to invite them back since they did not self-identify as a legacy.

I have also seen when women don't list themselves as a legacy. Then we get a legacy recommendation form for them, but it isn't marked in ICS. Then women in the chapter question their intentions in later rounds when they come back telling us how much they love our chapter and how they are a legacy.

As for ICS, we only get a legacy list for our chapter, not for all the other chapters. However if I go into each individual profile, I can see if they listed any other chapters.

Panhellenic cannot dictate membership selection.

ForeverRoses, I am reading this thread with great interest. As you know, my daughter just finished Recruitment. She was fortunate to have essentially full party cards (including 4 chapters that she adored) to the end, Preffed 2 of them, and accepted a bid to what became her top choice, her legacy chapter. She did, however, lose many chapters early on that she really would have liked to have gotten to know better. I know there are deep cuts early and it is very competitive. It is hard to know if her legacy status played a part in her not being asked back, or not. I have wondered about it as I have another daughter in high school. It very likely could be that they just didn't click or it came down to sheer numbers. I'm just grateful it worked out for her and that either bid would have been a very welcome sight. It was a rough 2 weeks!

I feel that the new release figures have made it tougher on legacies, who are often dropped by their non-legacy chapters because the members don't want to "waste" a spot on someone who will suuuurely be pledging their legacy chapter. This has played out several times for local girls.

One of my nieces, who would have been quite in demand at her medium-sized school had she not been an in-house legacy, was left with 2 choices after first parties. I felt for her until bids came out! What if her legacy group had cut her? And I have seen this happen to girls who had a sitting sister in the house.

My daughter's roommate also got cut from many houses off the bat, and I was shocked. Not only is she a stunning beauty, down to earth, and a Kelley school business major, but has a quick-witted, hilarious personality. She was also a legacy of a 'top tier' sorority that, apparently, tends to take out of state girls, which she is not. She wound up dropping out of Recruitment after they and all but 2 chapters, with whom she did not click, cut her. She may try again next year now that she has friends in many chapters, but my heart breaks for her. I don't think she was given a fair chance.

My daughter's roommate also got cut from many houses off the bat, and I was shocked. Not only is she a stunning beauty, down to earth, and a Kelley school business major, but has a quick-witted, hilarious personality. She was also a legacy of a 'top tier' sorority that, apparently, tends to take out of state girls, which she is not. She wound up dropping out of Recruitment after they and all but 2 chapters, with whom she did not click, cut her. She may try again next year now that she has friends in many chapters, but my heart breaks for her. I don't think she was given a fair chance.

We're all just sharing anecdotes, but I will say that in my chapter at no point did we ever discuss the legacy status of a PNM who was a legacy to a different house. It didn't even come up, even if we knew a PNM had a sister in a different house. I guess different chapters have different priorities on how to make cuts.

We did have a PNM who was up to be released after the first round, and someone realized she had a sister who was an active member at a nearby chapter and thus a legacy we weren't allowed to release. Why that sister didn't submit information for her or the PNM didn't mention it I'll never know, but I'm glad someone said something!

I don't know all groups, but I can tell you if we released her it WAS NOT because she was a legacy somewhere else. (Unless she specifically said "I only want to be a XYZ because I'm a legacy there").

As I tried to explain to someone, it's not that a chapter didn't like you, it's just that they liked other people more. And heavy cuts do turn it into a numbers game.

Thank you to everyone who has weighed in so far, although I will admit I'm still not completely clear on how we'll handle it. Anything coming up in conversation will be easy for her to manage, but it's all about do we want the other houses to know she's a legacy and potentially release her thinking she'd want to go to her legacy house (which is strong on the campus)? I'm just not sure yet. She'll have two recs sent in that specifically have a section for her legacy connection to be stated, so her legacy house will KNOW she's a legacy no matter what. I'm not concerned about that part.

Everyone is assuming these “darling, smart women” are being released because they are a legacy to another house. There are many reasons for releasing women. Sometimes they are just not high enough on a list. There also may be issues that the rec writer is not aware of when she is writing a glowing recommendation. It could be behavioral concerns or her attitude in the other houses. If a chapter really likes a legacy and feels they have a chance, they will not drop her. If she has an attitude, good luck, no matter how awesome she thinks she is. Yes, RFM makes it a lot more difficult to risk keeping a legacy sometimes they are worth the risk.

OldFLDDD get recommendations for all the houses. Look on the Panhellenic website for information on the houses. Prepare your daughter as best you can. Do not have rec writers conceal her legacy. That is not right.

Give your daughter a hug and kiss then a big bottle or two of wine for yourself. It will turn out great because you have raised an awesome daughter.

Bingo. It's the whole "we liked you, but we liked others better." Not that the legacy wasn't fabulous, but just not as good a fit/liked as much as other girls. There are so many legacies rushing these days that even big chapters could fill a pledge class of 100+ girls with legacies alone. I think any PNM needs to understand that when they're cut - legacy or not - that it's not personal, that it's that members found other girls to be a better fit and other girls had more actives in the house rooting for them. Sometimes a seemingly outgoing, great girl can either go "quiet" in a house (perhaps intimidated by it being their legacy house) or talk non-stop and turn everyone off. It happens.

The most important thing that I think legacies should understand is to know that legacy no longer means an automatic bid - that they're just as much in competition with other girls as a non-legacy with the exception of getting back to a 2nd party automatically. Attitude definitely can get a legacy released if they come through with a sense of entitlement. My chapter would have easily released such a legacy except that her sister was in the house.

I don't know which SEC school your daughter is attending, but I know that at Ole Miss, even chapter legacies are being released after the 2nd round - just so many legacies there and so many girls in general. Variable quota has intensified this so even more chapter and non-chapter legacies have been cut.

I wish your daughter well! Please keep us posted!