does being a legacy get you a bid?

Nothing guarantees a bid to any house. Best fit of a pnm for a house is the golden rule and legacies get cut all the time for not being deemed a good fit for a house. Legacies are still valued and of interest, particularly chapter legacies, but they used to be a bigger deal a generation ago than they are now, primarily because there used not to be so many of them. These days at some schools there are sororities that could fill an entire pledge class, or two or three, with just legacies. So the rules have been relaxed somewhat. All sororities used to have a policy that legacies must be included in the first invited round, but a lot of nationals, though not all, have dropped that requirement and instead highly encourage chapters to extend legacies all due consideration however and whenever possible, and to avoid leading on legacies by carrying them through rounds if the chapter doesn't intend to bid them. One rule that is still in place for most sororities is that if a legacy attends pref they must be on the first bid list. At some schools it is not an advantage for it to be known to other sororities that you are a legacy somewhere because assumptions are made that you will go with your legacy house and so you are dropped by the others.