With housing numbers released in the past two days, the Offices of Residential Life and Admissions are taking measures to prevent housing crunch similar to last September's from developing next year.
In an effort to ensure on campus housing for students, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg said his office lowered its target number for freshman enrollment in the class of 2003.
"The '02 class was a little bit bigger than we expected," Furstenberg said. "We're losing spots in the dorms for the health and safety upgrades."
Partly as a result of the housing situation, "we lowered the targets for the class," Furstenberg said.
He said the admissions office hopes to enroll between 1,055 and 1,060 freshmen next fall.
"That's quite a bit smaller than last year," Furstenberg said. "It'll be very competitive."
Rosenblum said the number of beds available in residence halls will be 2,789, including affinity houses. Fraternities and sororities will provide and additional 420 beds.
She said 13 beds will be lost to renovation of the Gold Coast dormitories, but that no other changes will reduce the number of beds available.
Rosenblum said it is too soon to tell what types of residence options students with the worst priority numbers will have in the fall.
"We're hoping to convert lounges back to lounges," Rosenblum said, referring to the makeshift rooms created out of former common hall lounges. "I honestly don't know what will happen."
Housing Services will undergo some changes, however. Acceptance in the East Wheelock cluster will no longer be based on a student's previous residence there but will instead be based on applications interested students submit to the faculty associate and the assistant dean.
"It's based on your interest and participation in the programming," Rosenblum said.
Another change is the introduction of the "quiet space option" on the fourth floor of Wheeler Hall. Students who wish to live noiselessly will apply for the option, and one of the student residents will be selected to monitor the hall and report back to Housing Services.
Students will be likely be notified of next year's housing sometime in May, Rosenblum said. She added, however, that Housing Services is experiencing difficulty with its new computer program for organizing and expressing the housing situation.
The same computer glitch in the "banner system" computer program, Rosenblum said, has kept students from being able to view their housing numbers online.
"We've not been able to get the numbers loaded," Rosenblum said.
Even if students are not able to access their numbers, Housing Services will be still able to assign housing and to notify students.
