<p>I think they count on people moving off campus even though they participated in the lottery. Also, students planning on studying abroad in the fall may have chosen rooms in case their study abroad plans don’t work.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen the rooms personally, and I’m sure they’re fine. The one difference about the rooms is I don’t think they have built-in storage. None of the 70+ students accepted housing in Roper or Clark. I suspect it’s for the following reasons: One of the dorms is the substance-free living learning community and the other is the social justice living learning community, and these students must not be interested in those programs. These dorms are on the main campus, but they are small and off the beaten path. Also, they would be isolated from the vast majority of the sophomore population, who will be in Centennial, McDowell, and Cassell next year.</p>
<p>I think NewJerseyMom is correct about what they were thinking when they gave out more lottery numbers than rooms. However, I don’t believe this was handled well at all. They did know how many sophomores were participating in the housing lottery and they should have allocated enough rooms to accommodate them, instead of making these students wait possibly until June or July. Now these students are seeing their friends getting all excited about where they’re living next year and forming floor facebook groups and they’re left out for no good reason. </p>
<p>Besides counting on students studying abroad and giving up their rooms, the students were also told that rooms have been set aside in other dorms in case Cassell isn’t finished on time, so they’re hoping these rooms will become available.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about being isolated from other sophomores. It’s really only freshmen who all need to live communally so they can get to know others in their class. By sophomore year, people have their friends, and living with others in your class isn’t important. After all, there are plenty of sophomores who are living off campus entirely. As for the location, AU is small–no matter how off the beaten path these dorms are, they can’t be more than a 5 minute walk from anywhere else on campus. And there’s probably some positive aspect to the location–it’s got to be close to something–gym, library, bus stop, etc. No built in storage? Makes it much easier to re-arrange the room to their liking. This is really a “look on the bright side” situation.</p>
<p>One problem I do see with AU’s lottery system is that the same person can get a great or terrible number two or more years in a row. This worked to my D’s advantage because her friend had two great lottery numbers that secured her group a suite in Nebraska for two years. But it doesn’t seem fair. And when it comes to suites, I think the lottery numbers of all the participants should be averaged, rather than having one student’s good number secure the suite for everyone. Semesters abroad really mess with the system. Last year one of my D’s friends had an empty single in her suite all second semester because one of the girls went overseas.</p>
<p>If I understand correctly, most students know in March if they will be studying abroad, so I don’t understand why they don’t just do housing selection at the end of March or beginning of April. It seems to me that would solve a lot of these problems.</p>
<p>I guess this is how they do it a lot of places?
My room selection experience back in my college days was that rooming groups formed, and the GROUP got one lottery number. When your group’s turn came, you could pick for all of you. So, that would mean if you were four people hoping for a suite, and there weren’t any, you could get two doubles.</p>
<p>Theoretically. Actually, my house was pretty much all singles, so we were just picking locations on a corridor. But six of you could pick six rooms grouped at the end of a hall together, or whatever.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that a group of four that couldn’t be accommodated in a suite had to disperse, regroup, and two of them come back later. Why not let them pick two doubles adjacent to one another for the group?</p>
<p>I agree, DeskPotato. It seemed unfair that my D had to skip her class to come back 2 hours later when it became apparent that they couldn’t get in a suite. After hearing the chatter while she was there the first time, she spent that time in between in a panic because she was convinced that she wasn’t going to get a room at all. The reason they didn’t get two doubles next to each other is that the first 2 girls had 1 rising junior in the pair and they let them take rooms in Nebraska. Because my D and her roommate are both rising sophomores, they wouldn’t let them do that. </p>
<p>My belief system says that it all works out the way it does for a reason. As I told her, she will probably have some new best friends next year in the basement of McDowell! And I’m sure that all the other kids will eventually find their perfect spot as well…or at least, they will choose to make it their perfect spot!</p>
<p>From what my D told me, some rooms that are normally given to Sophomores in McDowell are being reserved in case Cassell isn’t ready in time. If Cassell is ready on time, they will release those rooms to students who didn’t get rooms in the lottery. Unfortunately, that causes a lot of extra stress for those students.</p>
<p>Really? That would surprise me. The kids were informed that if they chose Cassell, there was a chance they would be in some type of temporary housing until the rooms were ready–I figured that meant things like converted lounges (like they did for the overflow freshmen this fall). It would seem super unfair to give the kids who chose earlier the snazzier rooms AND dibs on back-up rooms.</p>
<p>(Full disclosure: My daughter did get a room in Cassell. She was prepared to couch-surf with off-campus friends, commute from home, whatever, for a few weeks if need be.)</p>
<p>My D and the other 70+ rising sophomores who didn’t get rooms were told by housing and dining staff that rooms were being reserved for students who got Cassell in case Cassell wasn’t ready on time, but they wouldn’t tell them in which dorms those rooms are located. I agree, DeskPotato, that this is super unfair. Students who were lucky enough to get Cassell essentially have two rooms reserved right now, while these 70+ students have none, and these 70+ students may not find out their housing situation until late July. This is very stressful and completely unnecessary.</p>
<p>Updated numbers: There were students who were supposed to select housing as individuals the day after D was supposed to choose, so the number of rising sophomores currently without room assignments for next year is closer to 130.</p>
<p>This is a long thread, but in case it wasn’t mentioned a lot of sophmores and juniors haven’t been approved for study abroad so a TON more housing will open up in the next few weeks.</p>