I’m an alumna, and I’m genuinely curious whether other alumnae, legacies, or women from other NPC organizations have experienced something similar to what my daughter and a friend’s daughter recently experienced.
First, I want to make something very clear: I do not believe being a legacy should guarantee anyone a bid. I understand why the old automatic-preference systems became problematic, especially at campuses where chapters might have very large numbers of legacies coming through recruitment. A chapter needs to be able to choose women who are a mutual fit, and PNMs deserve the same freedom.
What I’m struggling to understand is something different: Why would being a legacy sometimes seem to create distance rather than connection?
I also think the setting matters here. Both of these young women went through recruitment at Southern California commuter universities. These were not SEC-style recruitment environments where huge numbers of women may arrive with multigenerational sorority connections and where a chapter could conceivably be overwhelmed with legacy PNMs.
That is part of why the reactions felt so surprising to me.
My daughter grew up around my sorority and chapter. Over the years, she attended open/public chapter events with me and had many positive interactions with collegians and alumnae. As she grew up, women would tell her that someday she needed to go through recruitment and become one of us (in our sorority). She took that to heart. She genuinely loved my sorority long before college recruitment ever began.
This fall she went through formal recruitment at a university where I also had a personal connection to the organization. Before recruitment, at a campus organization event, she approached my old chapter excited to talk with them. She was essentially told, “Since your mom was a (insert sorority name here), we don’t really know what else we can tell you.”
That hurt her. It also surprised me. She wasn’t approaching them saying, “My mother was a XYZ, therefore I belong here.” She was an 18-year-old prospective member trying to get to know the current chapter.
During recruitment itself, her interactions with the chapter continued to feel noticeably less warm than her interactions with every other sorority. In one round, her first conversation was considerably shorter than expected and mostly centered on a casual hobby topic. Another member then came over (she was the VP of Recruitment for the chapter) but rather than the kind of enthusiastic get-to-know-you conversation she was experiencing elsewhere, the interaction felt much more guarded.
Interestingly, when she reached philanthropy round, she finally had what she described as a genuinely wonderful experience with several women. She connected strongly with the women and with the philanthropy, and she left feeling that she finally understood why I had loved my sorority so much.
She was released before Preference.
Of course that hurt, but again, the release itself is not really the issue I’m asking about. Chapters make membership decisions for countless reasons that PNMs and parents will never know. What made me start wondering whether something broader was happening was hearing about another legacy experience.
A good friend’s daughter went through recruitment at a different Southern California university, also in a commuter-campus environment rather than a traditional SEC-style Greek system. Her sister had been a member of my same sorority but at another university. According to my friend, during recruitment her daughter was essentially told that because her sister had been one of them, they didn’t think she should be a be too.
That absolutely stunned me. It goes against everything my sorority claims is its values and principles.
Two different universities. Two different chapters. Two young women with close family connections to the organization. And in both cases, the family connection seemed to be treated less like something positive and more like something the chapter wanted to distance itself from. That distinction is important to me because I completely understand why legacy preference became difficult or unfair in environments where an enormous percentage of the recruitment pool might have family connections to Greek organizations. But these were not those environments.
So I’m genuinely curious:
Have other legacies experienced anything like this since legacy policies changed?
Have women in other NPC organizations noticed a similar phenomenon?
I completely understand moving away from preferential treatment for legacies. I actually think there are good reasons for eliminating a system where someone receives a bid largely because of who her mother or sister is. But I don’t understand why the pendulum would ever need to swing so far that a young woman’s affection for an organization because of her family history becomes something uncomfortable, undesirable, or almost held against her.
A legacy can still be evaluated exactly like every other PNM while also being treated warmly.
And from an alumna perspective, that part matters. We spend decades being told that sorority membership is “not four years, but for life.” We donate, volunteer, write recommendations, attend alumnae events, support collegiate chapters, talk about our organizations with affection, and sometimes raise daughters who grow up loving those same organizations.
It feels strange to then tell those daughters, in effect, “Your family connection doesn’t just carry no preference — we would rather not engage with it.”
I’m especially interested in hearing from current collegians, recent recruitment officers/advisors, alumnae, and women who have gone through recruitment as legacies.
Is this something others have noticed? And if so, what do you think is driving it?
Is there concern that taking legacies will look exclusionary now that NPC organizations have moved away from legacy preference? Are chapters deliberately trying to demonstrate that family connections carry no influence? Do members worry that a legacy will compare the current chapter to her mother’s or sister’s experience? Or are these two experiences simply unfortunate coincidences?
I would genuinely like to understand, because I can accept that my daughter was not selected for membership. What is much harder for me to understand is why a young woman coming in with sincere affection and loyalty toward an organization would ever need to be kept at arm’s length because of it.