Rising second-semester sophomores and all rising juniors may be able to avoid the housing lottery this year. The Office of Residential Life could approve a Residential Council proposal early this week that would change the current dorm-room squatting policy and allow more students to keep their rooms for a second year.
Squatting was designed to allow students to live in their rooms for an additional year - as long as they were obtained through the housing lottery. Currently, only rising seniors may live in their rooms for a second year.
If the proposal is passed, students will be permitted to squat in lieu of participating in the lottery a second or third time. The policy would be extended to rising juniors and those entering their fourth semester so students who have taken leave will not be penalized, said Michael Morgenstern '08, chair of the lottery committee.
Morgenstern said expanding the system to younger students would make the housing experience better all-around. Many feel "the lottery experience is hellish," he said, and alleviating the pressures of the lottery would be a "better thing for students."
The new policy would stipulate that any student whose room was obtained via the lottery could keep their room as long as they comply with certain criteria. Rooms received off the waiting list or through the first-pick competition are not eligible, and those received through Disability Support Services would be reviewed for squatting on a case-by-case basis.
Students would not be able to squat sophomore-only housing. Though Morgenstern said this policy would deter "students from taking sophomore-only housing," the committee "still stands behind the idea of sophomore-only housing."
Other rooms that cannot be squatted include Wriston Quadrangle suites, Morriss Hall suites, Miller Hall apartments and Graduate Center apartments.
In order to squat a room, a certain number of the original occupants must be returning - one student in a single, two in a double, two in a triple, three in a quad, four in a quintet, four in a sextet, five in a septet and six in an octet - and all forms must be handed in by the lottery's Super Deadline Day, which falls on March 4 this year.
ResCouncil tried to make another big change this year - eradicating the policy of giving rising seniors their individual priority numbers before Super Deadline Day. Seniors would then receive a lottery number based on a group's average of individual priority numbers. But giving seniors individual priority numbers before they commit to a lottery group allows students to pick their roommates based on numbers, Morgenstern said. When first designed, the rule was intended to give seniors with bad priority numbers the option to live off campus. Now that the deadline for off-campus housing permission is earlier, the policy makes little sense, Morgenstern said.
"The council feels it just hurts students," Morgenstern said. "It promotes opportunism." Morgenstern said though the policy is seen as a privilege, it stigmatizes on those with poor numbers.
ResLife did not approve the council's plan to change this policy for the upcoming year, but Morgenstern said the council is looking to gauge campus opinion and hopes to bring the proposal back to the table next year.
Devin Sutcliffe '10 received his room through last year's first-pick competition, and though he would not be able to squat his own room, thinks sophomores should be able to. "Generally speaking, (sophomores) are going to have worse housing than juniors anyway," he said, and there would therefore be more desirable rooms remaining for students in lottery.
"I thought about keeping mine and I changed my mind," said Rachel Levenson '10. "I actually don't think it would be a good idea - the selection for incoming sophomores is poor enough already, and I don't think it would be fair to leave them with even less."
