transfer rush

UCSB admits thousands of junior transfers each year and quite a few of the women will go through formal rush. There is a quota system whereby each chapter has to admit a certain number of juniors, so that it can't just drop them all in favor of only freshmen/sophomores (who'll be around for longer). So juniors are competing in that pool of their own. I don't want to get into the entire toxic top-middle-bottom tier nonsense, but junior transfers can be and are admitted to all nine chapters at UCSB every fall according to the normal recruitment criteria.

So if you become a Gaucho, then go for it! Panhellenic does a good job of keeping Recruitment a relatively humane process compared to at some other schools, and the Rho Gammas (rush week counselors) are typically very helpful through all of the ups and downs that PNMs can go through.

I'm guessing they don't really get to have their pick of the houses, quota and release figures would just done be on a smaller scale for juniors so they're competing against each other the same way freshman are competing against freshman. Anyway, that's exactly what I wanted to hear, so thanks! Are Rec letters a thing here?

First I'm going to directly quote from UCBS Panhellenic's recruitment FAQs, and it applies to all PNMs including juniors of course:

"Letters of Recommendation are not required to participate in recruitment. If a PNM does not have Letters of Recommendation, it will not negatively impact her at all throughout the recruitment process."

Personally, when I went through rush I didn't submit a single rec letter and I got into a house that I love. That's my personal experience -- although experiences may vary. I believe UCSB Panhellenic can be taken at its word that those who don't supply rec letters aren't discriminated against in the process.

I've tried to think why this is. I think they are old-fashioned and don't fit a state like California or a UC campus very well. My sorority is huge in the southern states and I think that in that area maybe, Greek life is so prestigious on campuses, and the state populations are so relatively small and tradition-bound/conservative (unlike California) that letters of recommendation from alumnae could be a bigger deal. I'll just say, think of Alabama or South Carolina or other states where elite networks are denser than here (now I'm sounding like a cultural anthro course ;)).

In Cali we've got 40 million people and most chapters are at big public universities, people move more, people were born in other places, people don't stay in one town their whole lives very much, and at a school like UCSB, a big percentage of students might not even have known any sorority alumnae to ask for a rec. So I see it as a custom from yesteryear and therefore it's become really optional. Besides, it privileges girls who randomly happen to know an alum. I came from a little high school in a really little town in northern California that nobody here has ever heard of. I would have had to maybe advertise on Craigslist for alumnae to meet in my local area. So I was grateful not to feel like I needed to try, and I didn't try.

Nowadays in 2017 chapters are much more interested in your record of achievements/activities and what they can find out about you from social media/Google than a letter from an alumna who maybe barely knows you about what a great young woman you are. Then the rest is up to the impression a girl makes on the actives during recruitment.