I am in the process of writing my interest letter for my MIP packet. I am starting early, so when I find out about RUSH I will already have my letter ready and well thought out.
Anyways, I was just having difficulty writing my letter. I know that the following should be incorporated into my letter:
1.The letter should be one page in length.
2.It should tell us why, specifically, you believe that you should be offered membership.
3.It should tell us what you have to offer the sorority.
4.It should give us an explanation as to why you want to be a member of our sorority.
5.You can leave out some of the more obvious things, like what school u attend.
6.You should approach writing it like you are in an interview; think of some of the questions that would matter to the the interviewer (above mentioned points) and answer them in the letter.
7.The letter should open you up to the chapter members
At this point, I feel that my letter meets all of these requirements on this list. I just feel that information that I already listed in the MIP application is being duplicated in my letter.
For example:
I am a member of X,Y,Z, organization and hold the P position in each, this exemplifies my leadership skills.
I’ve participated in Q,R,S, community service for the betterment of our children.
All of these are already in my application when it asks questions such as “What campus organizations are you in, and what positions do you hold” and “List all of your community service in the past two years”. Do you see what I mean? I don’t want who ever is reading my paper and going over my application to think I just reworded all of my answers from my MIP packet to my letter.
In my letter I did get personal, but I do not know if there should be a limit to how personal you should get. I tried elaborate what I felt in my heart as much as I could in a one page limited space.
I am not asking what I should put in my paper, rather, which direction should I go. Just some helpful tips.
Thank you so much for your help!
Aspirant of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.
Answers
It sounds like you’re going in the right direction! You’re right; your letter should give more information about you, not regurgitate your application.
You may want to choose some specific experiences within the organizations you mention in your application and talk about how those experiences will benefit your chapter and make you a better soror. Examples:
1) As president of “X” you had to help resolve some difficult personality conflicts in order to establish good working relationships among the members. How did you do this and how might this translate to being a member of a sisterhood?
2) As a volunteer with “Y” organization you chose to organize your first fundraiser. What did you learn from this experience and, again, how might this translate to being of service as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha?
3) You may even want to mention an instance when communication failed–maybe you weren’t able to resolve the differences among the members of “X” group and a couple of members left. What did you learn from this experience that will help inform your actions in the future?
Make sure to be humble and honest as you relate your experiences; we’re all human and no one likes a know-it-all. What’s most important is that you illustrate that (1) you are self-reflective, and (2) you are able to turn liabilities into strengths as you move forward because you’re self-reflective.
In this way, your letter will give insight into your personality–who you are and what kind of soror you will be–far better than if you simply talk about where you grew up, how many siblings you have, traumatic childhood events, etc.
Now, give yourself another day or two to finish this draft and then put it away and enjoy your summer. Pull it out again at the start of the semester and then revise. Good luck!
Source(s): I am a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.