I am an undergraduate at UCSB and I have had a much different experience. For both my friends and I getting involved with research has been relatively easy, it just requires making the effort of interacting with the faculty outside of class, and pursuing research actively instead of waiting for it to fall into your lap. I think people forget that the faculty are often excited by having a very motivated undergraduate approach them, and show interest in the work they are doing. One of my friends started in his lab, as a second quarter Freshman, and most of my friends, including myself started second year(Note: I think this is really dependent on the kind of research, things like Data Mining have less barrier to entry then something that requires much more background like Abstract Interpretation).
