About 150 students receiving Fall term housing assignments this week will reach into their Hinman boxes only to discover they have been placed on a waitlist by the Office of Residential Life.
But one-third of these students will be able to take advantage of the 48 empty beds still available through affinity programs.
Associate Dean of Residential Life Bud Beatty said last year's waitlist began with 132 students, all of whom received fall housing by mid-July.
"The students on the waitlist are our number-one priority," said Beatty, who urged waitlisted students not to panic.
Beatty said this year there were 1,717 applicants for the 2,809 beds available on campus in residential halls, special interest housing and affinity housing. Last year there were 1,728 applications filed for fall housing. Beatty said there is never a waitlist during other terms.
All students on the waitlist are freshmen except five members of the Class of 1997 and two members of the Class of the 1998, Beatty said.
"Those upperclass students must have selected one room type and one type only and when we got to their applications there were not any left," Beatty said.
Part of the reason the waitlist is longer this year than last year is because the College reserved more beds for freshmen in addition to having open beds in affinity housing.
ORL will encourage students to seek housing in the affinity programs, Beatty said.
"It is quite disturbing to me that we have such a high number of vacancies in our affinity program housing during the term when the College experiences the highest enrollment," Beatty said. He said it is the first time he recalls there being so many empty beds in affinity houses.
The people on the wait list who apply for affinity housing and meet the qualifications of the program will have a higher priority than those people who received a residence hall assignment and then applied for affinity housing, Beatty said.
In addition to those students on the wait list, there are also 38 students who received provisional status for Fall term when they changed their Dartmouth Plans at the Registrar's office.
Provisional status is assigned to students who change their D-Plans to be in residence in the fall. The registrar will only change students' enrollment status to a resident term if the student can provide proof of having on or off-campus housing, Beatty said.
Beatty said he is confident the students who have provisional status will also receive housing.
This year, ORL did not accept the applications from students who attempted to file them after the application deadline. Fall term is the only term ORL does not accept late applications.
He said ORL will do its best to house all students as soon as possible.
"All of us that work in the office understand the frustration of being on the list and that is why we work as fast as we can once spots open up to reduce that anxiety," Beatty said. "We hope to have everyone off by mid-July."
In comparison to housing crunches experienced in recent years, Beatty said this year has gone much more smoothly.
Three years ago, 13 students had to live in temporarily converted dorm lounges at the beginning of Fall term. Two years ago, there were 400 people on the waitlist and almost 200 students were denied housing.
Last spring, in an effort to head off housing problems, the College's Enrollment Committee announced that not every student would receive their first choice D-Plan and announced measures to make Fall term less appealing to students by taking steps like shifting class sequences from fall-winter to winter-spring.
"As a residential college it is imperative for us to provide housing for students who want to live on campus," Beatty said. "We are not there yet. We have 15 percent of students living off campus and that's rather large for a college.
