Author needs help with legacy info
 

Hi everyone,

I stumbled upon this site tonight and am hoping that you can help me. I am a young adult author and my new book is focusing on a geeky girl trying to infiltrate the most popular sorority on campus. She is going to fake being a legacy in order to get in. It seems that legacies are not as important as they used to be but it's fiction people and I had to get her in somehow! :) I'm just wondering in the event that a legacy was invited to join a sorority what kind of proof would they have to give that they were related to the alumni? I hope you don't mind if I hang around if I have some questions. I'd be happy to put anyones name in my acknowledgment pages! Thanks again!

Stephanie Hale

I foresee this turning into a trainwreck, but I'll bite. If a legacy is going through recruitment, then it's mom/grandma/sister's job to send a form alerting the chapter at her school that she is a legacy. If the girl doesn't have a form sent in for her and says that she is a legacy, it would be the chapter's job to verify that with their headquarters. The only time when this wouldn't be necessary is if the girl's older sister is active in the same chapter.

Generally the PNM lists that they are a legacy on the recruitment application (or I suppose tells the sorority) and then the sorority checks with their (inter)national HQ to determine the validity of a legacy (which is generally a member's sister, daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter and sometimes niece). They'd check that the member exists and is in good standing as defined by their HQ.

Also the female versions of alum are alumna (singular) and alumnae (plural).

There are forms that the member sends in that are (or certainly can be) checked in the member database.

For fiction, I'm sure you can come up with something, but in real life there's a good chance she'd get caught.

(Heck, some people encourage you to prove you are a member to post on GreekChat. We're pretty vigilant about making sure that the people we treat as legacies actually are.)

And probably won't get in.....who would want a liar? Especially a poor liar.

If caught, yes. And though it's not impossible for an unverified legacy to get through recruitment... try getting caught while you're a NM... you'll be dropped and fast.

In real life, I think she'd get caught and get dropped from recruitment and or the group.

For fiction, you might try some silliness about another PNM who was an actual legacy with the same name (which wouldn't work in real life because other information would make it clear) or maybe her claiming a relationship to a great "grandmother" who was deceased and wouldn't be expected to verify the relationship herself who she knew to be a member of the group but who she wasn't really related to. (in real life, this could be checked out too, but it seems less likely to be as obvious to bust as saying her mom or sister was a member.)

I figured such.

I have to admit that I have wondered about my daughters, who are Chi Omega and Pi Beta Phi legacies from their deceased grandmothers. I can easily provide the names and chapter information, but do I have to send a birth certificate and marriage licenses? Is it like joining the DAR???:)

But you could if the chapter needed it, so no worries. My guess is that if a chapter had any doubt, they'd find someone else from the grandmother's hometown, even if he or she wasn't a group member, who could verify the relationship.

The Chi Omega, if she were alive today, would be 97! That is pretty amazing - it's what you get when you marry an older man who was a "whoopsie!" when his mother was 43! She was at Rhodes College back when it was Southwest(ern? I can't remember).
Actually, the Chi Omega daughter of my mother-in-law's (younger) Chi Omega buddy from the 70s onward is still in touch with us . . .so now that I think about it, that one is covered!

I know you said it was fiction, so it doesn't HAVE to be true to life. But in reality, chapters cut legacies all the time. Simply being a legacy isn't going to be feasible enough. I like the idea of someone else with the same name, but if you really want to go the legacy route, make it something more compelling - like a descendant of a founder or something.

yeah...a founder's descendant. I don't really know who checks our legacies out (I'm assuming our membership director or advisor -- I know someone does...) but I just feel that if someone came through saying they were one of our founder's great(times a bajillion) grandaughter...who would question that? i mean, obviously our nationals would be on our ass every five seconds making sure we gave this girl sweet treatment...so it probably would be questioned...but still, it'd make a much better story :p

So maybe a founder's great-granddaughter has the same name as your main character but doesn't want to rush because she's too emo for Greek Life, but encourages your main character to rush knowing the misrepresentation will help her? It practically writes itself.

I was thinking the same thing--make her the descendant of a legacy and people may be SO excited, they don't even think about whether its true.

My maiden name is Locke....I always wondered if I am related to Theta founder Betty Locke Hamilton, making me a Theta legacy. (I am pretty sure I am not!) But would anyone question?? (I hope so!)