Sending Your Daughter to College?

Here’s What You Need to Know about Sorority Recruitment

If you’re the mother of a young woman bound for her first year of college, chances are you’re experiencing a temporary respite – a break between the whirlwind of prom, senior banquets, academic programs and high school graduation and the impending rush of shopping and packing for school, moving your child on campus and getting her ready for the start of a new academic year and essentially a new life! Now is the perfect time to talk with her about Greek life and to gather all the materials needed for sorority recruitment.

It is important, if your daughter plans to go through recruitment on a campus where Kappa Delta has a chapter, for you to complete a reference form and a legacy introduction form and send these, along with her photograph and any additional information she chooses to include, to the chapter well in advance of recruitment. These forms and chapter addresses may be found at www.kappadelta.org or in the spring 2010 issue of The Angelos, which also includes approximate dates for recruitment and chapter information. Your daughter’s school will be able to provide specific times and other details regarding recruitment.

As a legacy, your daughter will be given serious consideration by the KD chapter, but it may turn out that she and KD are not the best fit. While Kappa Deltas tend to think our sorority is the best, the truth is sororities are more similar than they are different. We share many things in common with our Panhellenic sisters, including a commitment to helping others and forming lifelong friendships.

To help you and your daughter be prepared, here’s the nitty-gritty on legacies:
• It’s a fact that some chapters have more legacies participating in recruitment than they have spaces to fill.
• Chapter members are educated in the importance of legacies and their responsibilities to the legacies and their KD relatives.
• A Legacy Committee of trained alumnae acts as a resource for chapters and national volunteers who make legacy decisions.
• Chapters are expected to make their legacy decisions early in the recruitment process. The purpose of this policy is to provide the potential new member with greater options, if the Kappa Delta chapter is certain it will not issue her a bid to join. If she is invited back to Kappa Delta during recruitment, then other sororities will most likely assume that she will pledge KD and will release her in favor of someone who they believe is more likely to join their sorority.
• When a legacy is released, the chapter must get permission from a designated national volunteer who has been fully trained in legacy issues and will follow the proper protocol, including obtaining information from the chapter and its advisors.

The National Panhellenic Conference offers several websites to help young women and their parents in making important decisions regarding Greek life. The Sorority Life targets young women ages 16-18 with information about the options they will have in college, and its sister site, SororityIQ, offers an online quiz and interactive tools. For moms – and even dads – NPC offers information and blogs by real parents at www.sororityparents.com.