A Quick Update on the Housing Lottery
We wanted to catch up a little on what the housing lottery situation looks like, so we asked just a few questions of Residence Life. Tom Tarantelli responded, and the full text is below.
RPInsider: We were curious about whether Blitman Commons filled after the last lottery. Since there was so much talk about students not wanting to live there and it was important to the amount of upper class students who might have been pushed off campus, we were hoping to find out if the building filled up. It looked like there were some pretty high lottery numbers. Can you tell us anything?
Tom Tarantelli: There are some rooms available that will be added to the upper class room assignment process. In order to participate in the lottery for Blitman, students completed an application that asked them to outline their programming interests. Overwhelmingly those students were excited about the opportunity to live in Blitman and to participate in CLASS programming.
Also, how do you think the process as a whole is going so far?
We all think the process is going well. We realize that some students did not get the rooms they wanted because of high lottery numbers. That has always been the case and we want students to understand that we will do what we can to accommodate them. We still have the upper class lottery and room assignment to complete. That will be completed on February 28th.
Do you expect the remaining upper class halls to fill?
We do. Because this has been a change we have tried to communicate each step as clearly as possible and in ways that students and parents had access to the information needed to participate in the various housing lotteries. We anticipate that students who wants to live on campus will be accommodated.
Is there anything else you’d like the students to know?
Just that there are a lot of details involved in ramping up the lotteries and the room selection process. We are working on those details and appreciate the many questions we are getting. An upper class room selection information session is being held at 8 pm, Wednesday (tomorrow) in RU 3606. Since the process is “compressed” into a tight time frame we appreciate any effort to help students get the information needed so that they can participate.
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“Because this has been a change we have tried to communicate each step as clearly as possible and in ways that students and parents had access to the information needed to participate in the various housing lotteries.”
What they didn’t announce though (until the morning of the lottery) was that for the polytech lottery they were going to have a certain floor plan for each floor with parts shaded in blue and pink for whether they were for guys or for girls. Many people were not able to get into the building because of enforced gender requirements that were unheard of before the lottery happened itself.