<p>For sophomores who decide not to join a frat/sorority/selective living group, how does housing work? Do you still just fill out a quick survey and get placed in a random dorm with a random roommate?</p>
<p>It’s Roompicks. First you decide whether you want a triple or a double and register to be part of a group with your roommates. If you don’t have roommates lined up, then you’ll need to be matched with one beforehand. I don’t think they’ll automatically do it. Each group has a leader. Some time later (in March), your group will be assigned a lotto number based solely on luck. The pools for doubles and triples will be separate and they will pick at different times. On a select date, you go the the RLHS website and register for a room much like you do with classes. In the order of your lotto numbers, you will be admitted to the software in batches of 10 groups, and each group leader will pick a room (select by house, then by room number. There’s no mention of quad, so that can be confusing at first. For example, if you want Keohane, that’s 4A, 4B, and 4D, or Crowell is G, H, AA, BB, CC, DD, EE, etc.)
Before your time to pick, you should have a list of rooms ready sorted by order of preference. As rooms are picked by people ahead of you, cross them off your list so you know exactly what to go for when your window comes up. A new window opens every ten minutes until the lotto numbers or the rooms run out. Sophomores are guaranteed space on West, so there should be enough space, especially with the opening of the new Keohane dorm next year. Sophomores also have the option to live on Central.</p>
<p>Thanks man, that was very thorough. So I guess I should start looking for one or two other good friends to room with while it’s still early. About what percent of people just choose to be matched with a random roommate though?</p>
<p>That I really don’t know. Can’t imagine it’s that many people. I also forgot to mention blocking: Multiple roommate pairs (doubles only) can join together into a block with a block leader. The entire block will receive the same lotto number so you all can pick rooms that are near each other. Blocks can either be single gender or mixed gender, but roommate pairs are same gender. There’s talk about a mixed gender roommate program, but I don’t know when they will start that. Not all floors of all dorms are mixed gender, so mixed gender blocks will be hard to set up where everyone is literally next to each other. For example, all of Keohane 4B 6th floor is female only, so if there were males in their block they would have to be on another floor. OTOH, Crowell CC 3rd is all male and BB 3rd is all female, but they’re right next to each other with only a fire door separating them. The blueprints for all the dorms are on the RLHS website, so you should spend some time studying them. Just keep in mind that not all rooms are available for sophomores, and half of those that are are not for your gender.</p>
<p>Alright cool. And one last question, do you know much about the non-Greek selective living groups? It seems like some of them are just informal frats/sororities, but how selective are they, or are they mostly self-selecting? Round Table and Lang Dorm seem kind of interesting to me.</p>
<p>No idea. I think they work like frats and admit people using their own system. In other words, I don’t think RLHS has any say in it. RLHS does manage the Wellness, Substance Free, and East Meet West housing options. At the time you register as a roommate pair, you can select whether or not you’d like to participate in these. No blocks allowed. It’s assigned by lotto, but if you get into it you’re obligated to go through with it. East meet West is supposed to work just like East campus: a section of a dorm (Few and Kilgo, I think) are set aside and no blocks are allowed. In other words, aside from your roommate, everyone else is likely to be strangers. This is to combat the formation of cliques; otherwise, people form a group of friends, block with them, and close themselves off to everyone else.</p>