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Originally Posted by ucsbgirl
I am a current HS senior and was accepted to UC Santa Barbara today and am probably going to attend this fall. I'm planning to rush in the fall but if I join a sorority it doesn't necessarily need to be the "hottest" or the most popular one, just one that's a good fit for me. Still, I am hoping to join a more active/larger sorority to meet some cool people and have fun. I did a quick search but couldn't find many recent posts on UCSB, particularly about how competitive rush is. For example, do I absolutely need letters of recommendation? Also, my mom is a member of one the chapters at UCSB. I know this helps at some schools -- do you think it would at UCSB?
Any info at all about rush or Greek life at UCSB would be much appreciated! Thanks!
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I honestly think recs are great for any school...being a California native all my life, I think the only school I'd say absolutely get recs for if you don't know anybody in the chapters is USC. That being said, UCSB, UCLA and UC Berkeley have semi-competitive rushes, and having recs to each chapter will certainly put you on the chapter's radar in a positive light before recruitment starts...after that, the pressure is on you to impress, but they are still good to have.
As far as your legacy counting, legacy policies don't vary from school to school, but rather sorority to sorority. I am sure your mother could easily find out your legacy policy and let you know...for many, it is that you get an automatic invite back during the first cuts, and that if you end up at the sorority on pref day/night that you are automatically placed on the first list.
Legacies are never guaranteed a bid (well, maybe they are in some sororities, certainly none I've ever heard of), and I've found that its power for a PNM generally varies depending on how competitive a school's recruitment is. For a small school with an ultra non-competitive greek life, legacies may be so rare that they will be willing to forgive some discrepancy in chapter fit (to an extent) to bid you. At the SEC schools that practically invented frills rush they may have double the number of quota in terms of legacies and still want to bid non-legacies as well, making your legacy status practically irrelevant. I'd say UCSB is not as competitive as USC in terms of California, but a lot of strong PNMs go through. So I'd assume legacy will help but not make you a guaranteed shoe-in.