"Last year we were surprised with the increase in the number of seniors and juniors that participated. This year we were expecting this, and I am pleased with how it went," she said.
Class-Giguere attributed last year's participation increase in the room draw process to the availability of the new housing options in the McLaughlin and Tuck Mall clusters. About 20 fewer rising seniors turned out for this spring's room draw.
This year, suite housing proved the most popular.
"They were gone in 10 minutes and the last priority number to get a suite was 815 and they started at 801," Class-Giguere said. "We didn't think they would go that fast. That was intense."
Anticipating a high turnout for room draw, ORL made an effort to inform students about the housing process and the inevitability of a waitlist. With the addition of the new residence halls, ORL was able to guarantee housing for sophomores for the second year in a row.
"This was a successful one -- it feels like people going into it felt like they were well informed," Class-Giguere said. "It didn't seem like people were too stressed out or upset. We did expect a modest waitlist and that's what we got."
Of the students enrolled for Fall term, 138 rising sophomores, 73 juniors and 270 seniors have no on campus housing at this time. For those interested in on-campus housing ,the deadline to sign up for the housing waitlist is June 1, and ORL expects it to include approximately 100 students.
Class-Giguere noted that several rising sophomores did not show at room draw, presumably because they were pessimistic about their numbers, but were less anxious about the waitlist process because of the housing guarantee.
For the first time this year, students had the option to elect gender-neutral housing through the standard housing application process, in addition to the affinity program floor in McLane Hall. Approximately 200 gender-neutral beds were available through room draw, in the Maxwell and Channing Cox apartments and in the East Wheelock Cluster.
Only about 10 percent of this space was filled by co-ed rooms, in contrast to the high demand seen for the pilot affinity floor.
Anja Sundali '10, who will be living on the affinity floor next year, said that when she applied for this option, she was under the impression that only a few scattered gender-neutral rooms would be available through room draw.
"I wanted to be on the floor because I wanted to be in that community, and I didn't want to go through room draw," Sundali said. She added that she might have considered room draw if she knew that there would be so much housing available of this type.
