Nearly 200 students are without fall term housing after going through the room draw process, according to data provided by director of undergraduate housing Rachael Class-Giguere.
Class-Giguere said the number without housing is in line with previous years and that she expected there to be a waitlist for housing, as there has been every year she has been working at the College. Rising sophomores, who comprise the majority of students on the waitlist, are guaranteed housing, she said, although that does not apply if they do not request housing, are on a leave term or are not enrolled in classes in the fall.
The rooms are not available yet because the exact size of the incoming Class of 2019 and that of the transfer and exchange student class is still unknown, she said.
Of the 187 students who do not have housing but participated in the formal room draw process, 126 have submitted waitlist applications. Around 20 waitlist applications remain incomplete. The deadline to apply to be on the housing waitlist is June 8.
After the deadline has passed, the housing office will send out an email to the applicants detailing how many people applied along with any other possible vacancies for housing.
Another email will be sent out around July 23 or 24 after the fall cancelation deadline to let students know about upcoming room assignments.
In the waitlist application, students indicate building preferences and preferred room type and roommates, although there are no guarantees, Class-Giguere said.
The majority of the rooms needed will be coming from students who change their D-plans, transfer student housing that is not filled and vacant spots in living learning communities.
The application for the living learning communities is separate from the application for the waitlist, although applicants to the living learning communities must also apply to the waitlist.
Class-Giguere also said that the housing assignments would be sent out starting in late July and that the housing office would try to get the information to the students as soon as possible.
Once that process has started, she said that she will be in communication with the students every week regarding any updates.
She said that she has been managing the waitlist for 13 years and it has always worked out.
For the formal room draw process, students are randomly assigned a priority number based on class year.
Numbers for rising seniors range from 801 to 2300, 2301 to 3500 for rising juniors and 3501 to 4700 for rising sophomores. Students can then create a roommate group for their preferred roommates, and the individual with the lowest housing number selects the room for the entire group.
Garrison Roe ’18 and Harrison Maidman ’18 tried to apply for a double, but as the highest housing number between them was 4268, they were put on the waitlist. Roe said they expected to be placed in housing during room draw, even though they did not expect to receive their ideal dorm. Roe said he was not sure why there was a need to fill out a form for a separate waitlist, as the housing office should already have the information on who was denied housing.
Ian Sullivan ’18, Adam Baillie ’18 and Bobby Maguire ’18, who are also currently on the waitlist, wanted to live together in a triple in the Massachusetts Row or Fayerweather clusters and had a housing number that was in the 4060s. Although he was initially nervous that he had not received housing, Maguire said after finding out that he was guaranteed housing, he has become more confident about his situation.
He was disappointed that he would probably not be able to room with his friends, but is indifferent to having to go through the waitlist application process.
Paige Mickel ’18 and Andie Conching ’18 also were going to apply for a double with a housing number of 4300, but were placed on the waiting list. By the time it was their turn to do room draw, Mickel said that all the doubles were already gone.
She said that the College sent her an email saying that as long as she fills out the waitlist application, she is guaranteed housing and that the College would do its best to honor her roommate preference.
The email said rooms would be given out based on priority number. Mickel said that it was frustrating to not have housing for the fall and to know that she may not be able to choose who she lives with sophomore year.
