Is it time to change who we think of as legacies?

[adpiucf]

I don't think it needs to be generally advertised to your non-legacy chapters where your relative initiated, but that's more of a competitive culture than anything else. I think it is easy enough to change that by not asking the question on a recruitment application. It's no one's business except for the legacy sorority. Similiarly, the individual sorority rec forms really have no business asking you what other sorority influences/legacy status you might have. Maybe it's for statistical purposes, but I think it hurts the PNMs. Some chapters automatically assume a young woman will join her legacy sorority. And then when the legacy gets cut by her mother's sorority b/c she isn't a fit for that chapter, she has no where to go... or fewer options at the very least.

If you were to put a college admissions committee and a sorority membership team side by side, there are a lot of similiarities-- the grades, the activities, "celebrity status," diversity, etc.-- as things that are considered in admissions.

In university admissions, some minority groups receive additional special consideration. It doesn't guarantee them a spot, but it can help because the university is committed to helping these groups achieve greater presence in higher education.

Legacies are like our minorities for the purposes of recruitment-- we want to give them some special additional consideration, but it isn't a free pass. It never has been, and it never should be. I would hate to be a legacy and think the only reason I received a membership bid was because the chapter "had to," and not because they wanted to.

I don't think the legacy consideration needs review, but I do think that legacies shouldn't be required to make their status publicly known.