In House Legacies
 

I'm an in house legacy to a sorority on my campus. How does your sorority look at in house legacies? Do they have a better chance than legacies who aren't in house?

Just for everyone's info, an in-house legacy is a PNM whose sister is an active in a house she's rushing.

I know with my house not being at total we have had in house legacies not go through formal recruitment if they dont want to. In my chapter we have always had a group go meet these sisters beforehand, and have fallen in love with them. So in a few instances we ended up handing them bids the week after formal recruitment. There has also been the fact that not all of our in house legacies have been sure about wanting to join a sorority, so many of them were not given bids until a few weeks or even months into the semester.

I think that, for better or for worse, the perception the majority of the sorority (hehe, I made a rhyme!) has of the older sister will color the chance the legacy has of getting a bid.

I remember our CCD saying once that "if big sister has what it takes, then probably little sister will have it, too". And that works conversely, also.

We had three in-house legacies go through rush when I was an active, and I'm proud to say that we nabbed two of them! Of course they were paid extra attention (whether they knew it or not) as all of our legacies are, and it really helped that their older sisters were awesome girls. :)

We have never had an in-house legacy come through, but I talked to some of other sororities on my campus about them before. Their perception was pretty much, they would die before they let that girl slip away! And yes, it was considered a major coup for a house to get someone else's in-house legacy.

We had a terrible in-house legacy problem. To keep it brief - everyone that met the legacy at the recruitment parties seemed a little undecided, so she was invited back just to see if she was just overly nervous or something...anyway, she acted TOTALLY different - everything that we were cautious about before was changed...everything, she was like a different person. She was talking to someone at the next round of rush and mentioned that she spent a lot of time talking to her sister and got some tips for the next round. It was obvious that the DG Sister told her Sister what happend at Membership Selection. PNM Sister dropped out of recruitment and DG Sister ended up turning in her badge...it was so sticky. Just be real careful.

Most of our in-house legacies were no problem at all. The only time it did come up was when a sister who wasn't that well liked had her little (bio) sister going through rush. The little sis was nothing like the older one, so she was fine.

One of our sister's bio sisters didn't get along with her at all and pledged another group on campus. We weren't upset at all, as the present sister already had beaucoup family issues and bringing a sister she didn't get along with into the mix would not have been worth the headache.

We had 2 in-house legacies come through during my time in college. One of them really really wanted her grandmother's legacy house and not her sisters (ie our house). She ended up being cut from the grandmother's legacy house and prefed us and another group. She ended up joining another group.
The other in-house legacy was cut heavly after round 1. We have no idea and maybe guessed it was because she was an in-house legacy. She ended up becoming one of our new members and was very happy with her choice!

All of this brings up a question. Is it common to be cut from one house on campus because you are a legacy (be it in-house or not) of another house on campus? I hope I am making sense...:D

From talking to people at larger schools, I've gotten the impression that it is. I have a friend who was a chapter legacy (both grandmothers were members) to a sorority on her campus, and got dropped from a lot of houses early on - she thinks this is why and has told me that on her campus, if they see somebody is a legacy, they tend to assume they're going there.

We had an in house legacy come through last year. She wanted to reallllllly be either a Phi Mu or an XYZ, but I think XYZ may have been just a smidge higher in her choices simply because she wouldn't have had to follow in her big sister's shadow. However they ended up inviting her to pref and everything but she did not get a bid from them, but got one from us instead! I am *so* glad that she joined our chapter, she is so adorable, sweet, kind, and fun and we're so lucky to have her! :)

I can't remember from my days whether in-house legacies were cut heavily by the groups they weren't legacies to. Lately, I've heard from some in-house legacies that they were cut by almost everyone else early on--the groups assumed they'd be pledging their sisters' houses--and other people have said it was a coup to grab someone else's IHL.

I've known twins to go to 2 different houses but I've only known of 1 woman to pledge a house other than her older sister's. Since her older sister was the president of her house, her sorority felt really hurt.

The best tip I have is to make sure and treat your sister's sorority like all of the others that you visit during rush, if not better. We had a PNM come through last year when I was just an alum helping with rush and it was a disaster at first. The PNM thought she automatically had a bid from us, even though her sister had transferred and was no longer active in our sorority. She came into our house on the first day with her t-shirt tied in a bow at about midriff height, showing her stomach. She said several inappropriate things to sisters who spoke with her. Apparently she knew we wouldn't cut her the first day, and thought we wouldn't cut her no matter what, so she wanted to push us and see how badly she could act and still get in. Her biological sister called our chapter later that nite to see what we thought and I think someone must have tipped her off to what happened and she must have told her sister the PNM, because the girl acted perfectly the rest of rush. She did end up joining our chapter and everyone loves her now, but that was NOT a good first impression she made. Had it not been for the great love and respect our chapter had for her biological sister, she probably wouldn't have made it because I know there was a lot of debate on the subject.

All in house legacies automatically receive a bid if they come to prefs (they are moved to the top of the bid list). It would be too messy if we got into the business of cutting siblings.

i have to agree with this one. i was an in-house legacy, my sister was actually the president of that chapter when she was there. however, there were girls that did not like her and therefore cut me early on because of that. girls that were friends with my sister, that missed the early rounds, found out when they got back to school and called my sister to let her know why i was cut.