Emails, angry phone calls and occasional crowds arrived at the Office of Residence Life this week as the countdown to the class of 2014 housing pick night neared its close.

Particularly dedicated droves of students spent entire mornings and afternoons waiting for help from Residence Life employees, some hoping to find last-minute roommates as they paced the LLBCC.

As expected, all applicants for junior year housing will be guaranteed a residence on campus; however, groups that received a lottery number higher than 92 were notified Tuesday morning that they were to exit the lottery, split and reconstruct their groups to live in “8 person apartments” or opt to live in Kostka Hall.

Even applicant groups who reconfigure into eight-person residences are not guaranteed apartments, depending on their lottery number.

Rising junior Brandon Bubba’s lottery number was 97.  He asked: “Why does housing have to add stress to people’s lives? They built more housing to make it easier for juniors and seniors, and now it’s harder for me to get the housing that I want than it was for sophomore year.  They should be offering me a beach house.”

Acting Director of Residence Life Ophelie Rowe-Allen knows from experience that this state of affairs on the eve of pick night is not unusual, and the frustration for this year is not expected to end soon.  “[The frustration] is going to continue until they all get housing.  This is normal and we are prepared for it every year,” said Rowe-Allen.

Suzy Peterson, a secretary at the office of Residence Life for 12 years, echoed Ophelie. “We’ve had a lot worse years with phone calls and parents upset.  Some years it’s a piece of cake. Sometimes it’s like there’s a full moon,” said Peterson.

Developments that have yet to occur may make some students’ stress unwarranted. What many students do not know is that approximately 50 students from the class of 2014 are projected to not return to school this coming fall.

According to Associate Director of Residence Life Charlie Sousa, the above figure is based on trends from past years.  He said many students vying for housing do not yet know if they will not return because of unfulfilled academic, transfer or financial concerns.

Those student departures will create empty beds in townhouses and apartments, providing those who decided to bypass pick night with unpredictable housing options in August.

Sousa, who, according to ResLife staff, is the only person who knows details about the housing lottery, spent most of his day tackling a high number of student requests and questions in between meetings.

As students pressed for an opportunity to see the busy administrator, secretaries and other Reslife staff answered questions as best they could for some and simply scheduled appointments later in the week for others.

Some left the office displeased with the system as a whole, calling for a “fairer” process.  Rising juniors Haidy Malik and Christopher DelVeccio want housing options to be given first to students with higher grade point averages.

Others, like Alex Fylypovych ‘14, dread the social implications of the last-minute apartment scramble.  She walked into the Office of Residence Life Tuesday afternoon with a long face and few options. “I just feel bad,” she said. “Now I’m going to be fighting with other friends to get into an eight … It’s just frustrating.”

According to Sousa, the idea of moving to a GPA-based system or others is voted on every few years by a group of students. “Every year we try to reevaluate the housing process,” he added.

In some ways, student input had led to the current need for applicant group restructuring.

“Eight [-person] residences were built on a student request process that began six years ago.  Eight would be great according to student feedback,” said Sousa.  “Since the townhouses shifted from five-person and seven-person groups, there has been no real request for eights.”

Ultimately, the number of juniors having to live in Kostka Hall next fall will be about the same number as this year.

The housing lottery for rising sophomores opens March 28 and closes April 5.

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