The Office of Residential Life wrapped up room draw for the Fall term last week, leaving many rising sophomores "homeless" for the moment. ORL could not give an exact count of the number of students who are now on the waitlist, but expects the number to be similar to last year's level of between 300 and 400, Director of Undergraduate Housing Rachael Class-Giguere said.
While uncertainty regarding fall housing can be a cause of stress for some '06's, some waitlisted students are still hopeful regarding their potential living conditions.
"I got wait listed with a number of 3859," Pierce Perotti '06 said. "I'm disappointed, but I have heard that sometimes you can get a nice room off the waitlist. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed."
Students are permitted to add their name to the waitlist until the end of the Spring term, thus making a firm count of the total number of students on this list hard to figure until June, Class-Giguere said. Room change forms, accepted until the end of the term, will also affect this figure.
Last year, the number of students choosing to squat in their dorms grew from 140 to 300, due to an increase in the number of dorms students were allowed to squat in. This year, the number decreased to 235. Class-Giguere hypothesized that the decrease is the result of more students being interested in living in a specific kind of room, rather than a specific location. All dorms except the River Apartments, the East Wheelock cluster and those dorms set aside for freshman housing are available to squatters.
The room draw process followed a similar path as in previous years, in terms of the popularity of different dorms and rooms. According to Class-Giguere, the first rooms picked by the rising seniors were, as usual, the River Apartments. For rising juniors, the most popular rooms were singles, followed by two-room doubles and three-room triples.
As was the case last year, the Tree Houses were the least popular dorms, despite an attempt to make them more attractive by allowing students to pick a block of rooms with their friends. At the end of the week-long process there were still two female doubles available in the Tree Houses.
ORL has set aside 1200 beds for incoming freshmen, the same number as last year. Any of these beds that are not occupied by freshmen in the fall will be made available to students on the wait list.
An informational meeting will be held by ORL for all students on the wait list on Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the Hinman dormitory lounge. The purpose of this meeting will be to provide information about the waitlist procedures and answer any questions these students might have.
