Residence Life is considering changing to a lottery-based system for the housing selection process
By Katie Schleiss
The Housing and Quality of Life Committee is considering changing the way housing is assigned, moving from a point-based system to a lottery.
Although no changes have yet been implemented, the Department of Residential Life is very likely to begin the change in coming months.
The aim is to simplify and streamline the assignment process and to make it more user friendly, said Mike Walsh, Director of Residence Life.
If approved by the Office of Residence Life, the change could take place in late February or early March, before spring break, he added.
Walsh said the current system, in which a student accrues points based on credit hours, the number of semesters of on-campus living and a return to the same dorm, receives a large number of complaints.
The Office of Residence Life is surveying Resident Assistants, hall council members and students about their feelings about the proposed change.
Walsh acknowledged the responses are likely to be mixed. "With any new system, there will always be complaints to change."
Junior Sara Reynolds has lived in the dorms for three years and said that she was able to get a room with a bathroom last year because of all of the points she had built up through the point-based system. Because she was ahead in her credits, she had a better shot at getting a competitive room.
"I like the point-based system better. The point-based system is more rewarding and I feel sorry for everybody else who will be applying to live in the dorms next year," Reynolds said.
These points determine the rank of the students, with students with higher ranking choosing their rooms before students with a lower rank. This also allows upperclassmen to be able to choose their own rooms, while freshmen are assigned their rooms.
The new system that is being considered is an all campus-lottery system that will be determined through all the buildings, not just by the individual buildings. There will be one housing selection night, instead of a separate housing selection night for each individual dorm.
Junior Tabitha Garcia, Mehling Hall RA, said that the original process of assigning rooms in Mehling Hall under the point-based system typically takes an hour and goes smoothly. Garcia believes that this probably will not affect freshmen so much because they are always randomly assigned. She predicts that the transition between the systems will go more smoothly for them as they select rooms for next year having never worked through the point-based system.
"People with a smaller amount of credits will look at this as a good thing because it will even out the playing field, while people who have worked hard to build up credits will be bummed out," Garcia said. "People who had their hearts set on certain rooms may be disappointed."
Under the new system being proposed, seniors will still have more standing over the lowerclassmen because they will have the best numbers. These numbers determine the order in which one can pick housing. Students who have lived on campus for more than six semesters, usually including seniors, will be given more standing.
Students without seniority will be randomly assigned numbers. Just as a certain number of spots will be reserved for students who have lived on campus for more than six semesters, certain number of spots will be reserved for students who have lived on campus for more than four semesters. Although freshmen will have the lowest numbers, they will still be guaranteed housing.
"There will be two new halls finished by July, Fields and Schoenfeldt," Walsh said. "With these two new halls, anybody who wants housing will get it, unlike in the past when there was a housing crunch."
This new system will allow students to move between halls more easily. This system also allows students who do not live on campus to be able to move onto campus with fewer complications.
"This new plan was created to make the housing process easier for students," Walsh said.
The Office will know if they will implement the plan by the end of November or early December. The housing process begins in January, when the students are encouraged to begin applying.
