Despite student complaints regarding delayed updates on the housing vacancy list, the first two nights of the new online room draw system have gone "pretty smoothly," according to Director of Undergraduate Student Housing Rachael Class-Giguere. This is the first term that room draw has become an exclusively-online event for non-suite, apartment and quad housing.
"Right now our priority is to have a more real-time updated vacancy list available outside the portal, and being able to shorten the duration of room draw," Class-Giguere said.
The approximately 1,500 students who registered online this year were mandated to register with a roommate group for non-single living accommodations, a change from previous years, according to Class-Giguere.
"The idea of making groups so that not everyone has to be present when the room was picked was definitely easier," Shawn Abuhoff '12 said.
In groups of 10 at a time, junior students have access this week to the housing portal during a 15-minute window and can select their rooming preferences during that time, while rising sophomores will receive a 20-minute window next week, Class-Giguere said.
Students' biggest concern so far in the online process has been the lack of an immediately updated vacancy list after students in the previous time slot chose their rooms, Class-Giguere said.
"There is some frustration, and students want a real time updated vacancy list," Class-Giguere said. "Our goal for next year is ideally to have an automated vacancy system so that students can see then if the room they want has been taken."
Some students interviewed by The Dartmouth said the delay in the vacancy updates caused trouble and led to confusion regarding which rooms to select once their time slots had opened.
"I logged on and the rooms that were no longer available didn't show up [on the list]," Victoria Oosterhout '12 said. "I had to look at other rooms that I didn't plan on looking at in advance."
Pre-assigned roommate groups also made it difficult for students to change their minds once the portal opened, Alex Jiang '13 said.
"It could be more user-friendly, so that if you suddenly needed to switch from a suite into a double, you could do it," Jiang said.
Despite the high levels of chaos and stress characteristic of in-person room draw, some students interviewed by The Dartmouth said they miss the excited and emotional atmosphere of the former system.
"In an odd way, it was exciting to be in a room with all your class," Jiang said. "It was kind of fun to be there and talk to people to figure out last minute changes."
Selections for the East Wheelock residence cluster, substance-free housing and suites, apartments and quads which took place last Tuesday and Wednesday did not implement the online process, according to Class-Giguere.
"It was a more in-your-face and competitive experience," said Ryan McClafferty '12, who will be living in a suite in Fahey Hall. "We were in and out pretty quickly, and it was a pretty standard room draw system.
Students who are studying off-campus can participate in online room draw by accessing the portal from their current locations or by using a proxy, Class-Giguere said.
"One of the big selling points was that you didn't have to be on campus to participate," Class-Giguere said.
Drawbacks of the new system include the longer duration of the overall room draw process as a result of the larger of time slots, according to Class-Giguere. Numbers with a higher priority within a certain time slot also lose their advantage once the portal opens to the 10-student group.
"It's not quite as prioritized, because students might log in and choose their rooms more quickly than others," Class-Giguere said.
The transition from in-person room draw was driven by requests for a more streamlined system, and many students have responded positively to the change, according to Class-Giguere said.
"Students have been asking for a long time for an online process, for something that was easier and less time-consuming," she said. "When we upgraded our housing software, it was possible to offer that."
The new system allows students to quickly access the portal and select the preferred room choices, Abuhoff said.
"I'm really happy with it," Abuhoff said. "It literally took us five minutes to pick a room, compared to last year when we sat around for three or four hours."
The Office of Residential Life has extended its hours of operation, staying open until 11 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday to help students with their selections, according to Class-Giguere.
The online server can currently accommodate only a limited number of students at a time in order to efficiently process room requests, Class-Giguere said.
"Hopefully those restrictions will be lifted next year and we will have a greater server capacity," she said.
The Office of Residential Life will strive to communicate more effectively with students in the future, according to Class-Giguere. Some students were not aware of the new system and failed to register on time, she said.
"We're always looking for what are the best ways to get information to students," Class-Giguere said. "We hear that students get so many emails that they're not always paying attention to them, so we're open to suggestions about what is a good way to communicate."
