Legacies and letters of rec

Legacy to a sorority at UofArk but from a different university

You may get a complimentary invite back night one. This is huge for houses that cut big night one. It atleast gives you the opportunity to impress someone second round. It’s a small chance but atleast it’s a chance!

Legacy from a chapter at a different university is not as helpful as legacy for a UArk chapter. The legacy might help you get an invite after first round, but it may not hold a lot of weight to go further based on legacy alone.

How did it hurt you?

I think she is saying that letting all the chapters know about your legacy status could lead other houses to think that you have already made up your mind, and so they could release you based on that. It is always okay to tell your legacy house your status, but it won't give you any favors with the other houses if they know. And some girls need to understand what legacy actually is for certain sororities, because it's different for every sorority.

@Pnm it hurt me because I am a legacy to a top house but from oos. UARK takes a lot of oos students but top houses stay top with a majority Arkansas girls because the return invest is greater. Like they’ll stay in Arkansas (more alumni support) and oos girls go back to Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas etc. which once you understand that it makes sense. I wish I had let my legacy house know but kept that info from other houses. Rush is a fast process and you don’t want to give other houses an easy excuse to cut you. Remember there’s 2,200+ PNMs that’s a lot like A LOT for only 11 houses. If you can get recs from UARK alumni, do it. These are the two things I would have done different.

But how can their nationals really enforce that. Let’s be honest here, Pi Phi and every other sorority still cares about legacies, even if they’re not supposed to.

No nationals "explicitly forbid" chapters from considering legacy status. A chapter is free to consider legacy in their membership selection if they choose, and legacies are encouraged to let the chapter know they are a legacy. The difference is that the courtesies and policies are no longer AUTOMATIC REQUIREMENTS. This beneits chapters and pnm's alike. But a chapter may certainly choose to pick one pnm over another because of legacy if they wish, it's not banned.