Fifth-year engineering students and "active older" students are still not eligible for room draw, the e-mail said.
The increased student housing is due to space made available in Brewster Hall and the Lodge, which were scheduled to be torn down next year to be replaced by a new visual arts center.
"The Visual Arts Center project, while still moving forward, would not require the loss of Brewster Hall or the Lodge for the 2008-2009 academic year," Redman wrote in the e-mail.
Greek organizations and affinity houses did "stellar work...filling their locations" to alleviate the housing crunch, and the "high number" of East Wheelock applicants will allow more members of the Class of 2009 to participate in room draw for housing next year. All freshmen are required to live on campus, and sophomores are guaranteed on-campus housing if they participate in room draw. Juniors and seniors are not guaranteed housing. Anyone not provided with housing during room draw can be added to a waitlist. The waitlist helps to ensure that as many beds as possible are filled in the Fall term, as more than 400 students change their D-Plans over the Summer term, Redman said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
With the expected loss of Brewster and the Lodge, and the continued renovation of New Hampshire residence hall, Redman originally decided to limit the number of seniors living on campus so that all students on the waitlist would receive fall housing, he said.
Some students believe that seniors should have priority for on-campus housing, and more sophomores should be required to move off campus, Redman said. Redman decided to give priority to sophomores, however, because seniors have a stronger social base on campus, so it matters less where they live, and many prefer living off campus in order to transition into the "real world."
"As second-year students, you don't have the same social networks to be forced off campus," Redman said.
In his e-mail, Redman thanked the members of the Class of 2009 who had found off-campus housing and also addressed some of the frustrations faced by students following his first announcement.
"I am sharing this new information as quickly as we learned about it ourselves," the e-mail said. "Though it may come too late to alleviate some of the anxiety already caused, I hope that for most this comes as welcome news."
Undergraduate housing accommodates 90 percent of students, and therefore roughly 380-400 students live off campus. There were some initial fears that there was not enough off-campus housing for an additional 100 seniors, Redman said. However, 580 students lived off campus at one point a few years ago, he explained.
