A novel application of vibrational sum frequency generation (VSFG) is developed to study the molecular properties of the surface of submicron particles in suspension. The Rayleigh-Gans-Debye scattering theory is extended to extract the local molecular response from the macroscopic nonlinearly scattered spectral intensity. These results demonstrate the use of VSFG to investigate quantitatively the surface molecular properties of submicron particles, dispersed in solution. It provides information on the order and density of alkane chains and allows us to determine the elements of the local second-order surface susceptibility.