<p>Can someone explain to me how blocking works? About all I know that it involves forming a group of about 8 people who are then placed together into residential housing, and that it beings in sophomore year.</p>
<p>What are the advantages of such a system? At face value, it appears likely to generate cliques while promoting social stratification and exclusion.</p>
<p>The way it works is that in the spring of freshman year, you choose up to 8 people to form a “blocking group” with. With this group, you enter the housing lottery that randomly assigns freshmen to their upperclass Houses, so you’re guaranteed to be in the same house as those 8 people. Once in the House, your blocking group is generally who people room with, though you’re free to room with anyone else in the House as well. During the blocking process your group can also link with another blocking group, which means you’re assured of being placed in Houses in the same “neighborhood,” (just meaning that they’re near each other) but not the same House. </p>
<p>The advantage of the system is that it creates a strong and cohesive class community freshman year that lasts until graduation and beyond, all while retaining the benefits of a House system in later years, including strong House pride and community. </p>
<p>At any college, students will have to choose at some point who they’d like to live with and (at colleges without House systems) what residence hall they’d like to be in. The blocking system is no different than that, so the idea that it’s any more likely to generate cliques or promote exclusion than the roommate selection system at any other school is pretty misguided.</p>
<p>I appreciate the response. I know nothing about the system. But it seems rife with the possibility to spawn an Andover block, a lax block, an Asian pre-med block etc.</p>
<p>That possibility exists and it does happen. What I’m saying is that this isn’t a unique consequence of the blocking process, it’s the natural result of any system at any school in which people choose roommates. People make friends according to their interests and activities, and then go on to live in dorms/apartments/Houses with the friends they’ve made. </p>
<p>This is not a Harvard phenomenon, it’s a college phenomenon.</p>
<p>Typically, if one blocks with an “Andover clique” or a “swimming team group,” the participant will find himself/herself quite miserable. This I have heard often. You don’t necessarily want to block with your friends. First year roommates are often blocked with unless the relationship was bad.</p>
<p>The downside is that there’s generally a lot of angst around blocking during the spring of the freshman year. But the benefit is that after rising sophs are assigned to one of 12 residential colleges, they still tend to maintain friendships and relationships with freshman-year hallmates who are spread among the other 12 houses. I stayed in the same hall for all four years of college, and at reunions I came to realize that even though I attended a smaller school, my close affiliations were largely limited to those people from my hall. My D who just graduated from H has a much wider range of friends and contacts.</p>
<p>I’d assume that the H system is largely the result of being the custodians of the most hallowed ground in all of American higher education - the Old Yard. The oldest dorm in the Yard predates the creation of the residential college system by two centuries, and it needs to continue to be used. So it’s a year on the Yard, then three in the Houses, unlike other places in which your House assignment is random from the start.</p>
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<p>Right. Harvard can’t keep up the social engineering for all four years.</p>
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<p>Enough angst to sometimes ruin friendships, including with those whom you do end up blocking with. At least at my uni, and Harvard’s system sounds largely similar. </p>
<p>At my uni it was most common for teammates to block together (and most of them rank this one cluster of residences first- hence it’s nicknamed the “Olympic Village”, and it literally has a handful of Olympians every year), but home/prep school locations or wealth really didn’t seem to be too big a factor. Of course friends block together, but since they get put with other block groups it doesn’t necessitate a clique formation, although this may happen. The anti-social physics nerds will generally block with the anti-social [insert tech field] nerds, and hard-partiers will generally block with hard-partiers. But hard-partiers will still end up in dorms with the nerds, and like in freshman year, they may hardly ever interact. I don’t know if Harvard offers co-ops or houses, but those are good options if you want upper-class community at my uni.</p>
<p>I would like to add that the blocking groups are placed into the houses randomly. The administration doesn’t take preferences into account at all, so upperclassmen houses are likely to get a wide array of students even if students are blocking with similar friends.</p>
<p>^^ Very true, and that randomization of where groups get placed really does make a difference. Each House is like a microcosm of the entire Harvard community in all its diversity. And people definitely socialize with housemates outside of just their blocking group, aided by frequent house-wide events and activities like happy hours, study breaks, House masters’ open houses, barbecues, and formal dances. Not to mention informally meeting and getting people in the dining hall, TV rooms, grilles, courtyards, etc. I definitely met and got to know people I otherwise wouldn’t have as a result of living in the same House with them. </p>
<p>Overall, the House system is a really great and worthwhile experience, and the blocking process is just one necessary component of it. While blocking of course produces the angst and drama inherent to any situation that asks a bunch teenagers to decide which of their friends they want to live with, the end-result benefits are invaluable. Also while the blocking drama may seem like a huge deal while it’s going on (what doesn’t seem like a huge deal when you’re 18?) it’s not likely to end up being very important in the grand scheme of your time at Harvard.</p>
<p>People approach blocking in a lot of different ways. I know people who had literally never met some of the other people in their blocking group when they submitted their housing form—heck, I had never met one of the guys in my blocking group until it was assembled (about two months before submitting the housing form), but now we’re good friends. I’ve heard that some people started putting together their blocking groups in the first week of school (N.B.: this is crazy, don’t do it), while other people didn’t finalize their blocking groups until the week before the form was due. Ultimately, blocking doesn’t really mean anything profound except that you’re going to be in the same house with these other people. That said, my blocking group is really tight and spends a lot of time together since we have a lot of the same interests.</p>
<p>Blocking also ensures you’ll have a support group to get you through the years in case you’re stuck living in a House you really, really, REALLY did not want to end up in.</p>
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<p>D1 got “stuck.” She decided to tolerate it through her sophomore year until she had the option to bolt for a River House. Three years later she was still in the House she initially didn’t want, passionately loyal and loving it.</p>