<p>While it’s true that the popularity of individual dorms is not static, Baker seems to be consistently the most popular.</p>
<p>So how do things work at Baker for REX.</p>
<p>If you choose to stay at Baker do you stay in your temp room or is there a lottery or something for final rooms?</p>
<p>I am trying to see what the chances are of being moved from a quad to a double at Baker.</p>
<p>Anyone have input about quads?</p>
<p>You will likely not stay in your temp room, in Baker or anywhere else.</p>
<p>I don’t know if Baker has a lottery per se, but I know freshmen put in their roommate/room type requests after they know they’re staying in Baker, so I assume there’s a hall rush like there is in many other dorms. I don’t believe being in a temp quad makes you more or less likely to be assigned to a double in the end (unless you request three roommates :)). Everybody who stays in Baker will put in their preferences, and the final assignments will be made either by a lottery or by students, or both.</p>
<p>Thanks for always replying!</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I did not live in Baker. </p>
<p>But according to friends of mine who did, Baker does not have anything like hall rush. (They were considering implementing one at some point, but I don’t think anything came of it). Basically, after dorm rush ends and everyone is sure they will be staying in Baker, all freshmen are assigned a number in a lottery. Then the rooming committee just goes down the list, and as each freshman is called they simply choose a room. If you’re planning to room with a particular person, you can claim them right along with your room. In other words, if you get called first, you can say “so-and-so and I want room xyz.” Then you’re both put into that room and your roommate is taken off the list. In that way your preferences for double/triple/quad are taken into account. Next House does something similar.</p>
<p>As I said, I didn’t live in these dorms, so my account might be a little off on the details, but that’s the basic idea.</p>
<p>Laura is basically right about how Next house does the in house lottery. However, I would like to note that before you get your lottery number at Next, you are broken up into groups and led around by upperclassmen to visit each wing. Each wing is pretty distinctive in its culture. There will be upperclassmen as well as the GRTs who will explain the wing culture to you as well as provide you with food and whatnot. After you visit ALL the wings, then you are assigned a number and based on your number, you choose a room. If your desired roommate has a higher lottery number than you, then they can drag you along when their number is called. This process takes a couple hours and sometimes goes really late but you’ll know which room you’ll have and who you’re rooming with (if you’re rooming with anyone) before you go to bed that night.</p>
<p>Next House housing lottery is done very inefficiently, IMO. The entire process lasted from around 8pm to past 12am. Not the best of experiences.</p>
<p>Is it difficult to get a single in Next? I’m temped in one (<em>not</em> trying to stay in my temp room or anything illegal like that), but would like to wind up in a single if I decide to stick with Next. Do I have to be one of the first 5 or so in the lottery to pick one?</p>
<p>If I’m currently in an East Campus double, what are the odds of being able to switch into either New House or Simmons in adjustment lottery?</p>
<p>@Luthien: It’s uncommon but not impossible. We leave around 2 singles on each wing open for freshmen, and since we have eight wings, you have about 16 singles waiting to be taken. Your incoming class will most likely consist of around 140-ish students (I was the third-to-last person on my list last year, at number #139). Many of them will want to live in doubles with close friends they met during orientation, so it really depends on where you land in the lottery. I believe around the 60’s last year, all the singles were taken. However, I do also know three friends who managed to snag them.</p>
<p>In addition, if you get screwed over and end up in a triple, you have priority when decrowding begins. Basically, when upperclassmen move out in December (whether to other dorms or FSILGs), then you get first pick to move into singles. I was originally in #402 (triple) but was able to decrowd in January into #423 (single).</p>
<p>I do know that this year there will be a lot of forced triples in Next, though (as in, some larger doubles will be made into triples due to lack of space).</p>
<p>bms2009: The fact that your temp room is a double is irrelevant. The major factors that matter are:</p>
<p>1) How many people want to switch out of New House and Simmons. The dorms are usually pretty full - if people don’t emigrate, there won’t be much, if any, room for people to immigrate.</p>
<p>2) How many people want to switch <em>into</em> New House and Simmons. If the results of point #1 mean that there are 12 open places in Simmons, your odds for getting one of them are different if 50 people want to switch into Simmons than if 15 people want to switch into Simmons.</p>
<p>And to a lesser extent:</p>
<p>3) EC’s popularity this year. While there’s some flex room (the system does not prohibit a popular dorm ending up a few people over theoretical capacity and an unpopular one ending up a few under), they don’t want things to end up such that half the dorms have crowds in half their rooms and the other half of the dorms are ridiculously under capacity. If there are 50 people wanting to leave EC and only 5 wanting to get in, they’re not going to let EC go that far under capacity, so the people who want to leave are going to be at the bottom of the priority list.</p>
<p>(In my experience, EC usually had a high-results Rush on both sides, with both lots of people leaving and lots of people coming in. So I doubt #3 is going to be a problem for you if you decide that you want to leave.)</p>
<p>Would it be possible to get a single as a freshman in either EC or Bexley? MacGregor scares me.</p>
<p>You will definitely, definitely not get a single as a freshman in Bexley.</p>
<p>EC, maybe, depends on what floor you’re on (or so I’ve heard)</p>
<p>Yeah, it is definitely possible to get a single as a freshman in EC. I’m pretty sure most of the halls have at least 1 freshman single, and a lot will even have 2 or 3 (out of about 8 freshman / hall). Also, you’re basically guaranteed a single after freshman year in EC.</p>
<p>Most halls in EC will have significantly more than 1 single - halls in EC generally have 2-3 doubles and take about 10 freshmen. Doubles are usually occupied by people that want to room together as well.</p>
<p>Bexley and 4W in EC have a lot of cultural overlap, and 4W <em>definitely</em> has freshmen singles available. You might want to check them out during Rush.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Seconded.</p>
<p>And yeah, Bexley will laugh you out of the room if you start asking about getting a single as a frosh. But probably 50-60% of EC frosh get singles, and some of the ones who don’t, ASKED for doubles (as I did - my temp roommate and I stapled our papers* because we enjoyed living together and had similar taste in halls).</p>
<p>*Stapling your papers, at EC, is a request to be put into a double together - it means stapling your and their questionnaires that you fill out during EC hall rush to express hall preferences, disclose medical concerns like allergies to cats, etc.</p>
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<p>This wasn’t quite true for this year… I <em>definitely</em> know a lot more people who got doubles than singles, and many if not most of those people wanted singles. This probably varies by year, though. I know my hall had 5 doubles and 2 singles this past year.</p>
<p>Yeah, I agree with la montagne. It is definitely possible to get a single in EC, but I wouldn’t say more than half the freshman do. The numbers do vary by year and by hall.</p>
<p>oh FRESHMEN
get over it! singles are not that great. having a double your freshman year is often fantastic and only sometimes in rare cases an actual bummer. and in those cases you can talk to the rooming chair and find a solution! so stop stressing!! really!!</p>
<p>at ec, i decided that since i would definitely have a single my sophomore, junior and senior years in the dorm, i would rather sacrifice a little privacy and try to find someone awesome to live with. the first day of rush i met certainly the coolest '11 and probably among the coolest east campus residents ever and immediately befriended her. after a period of courtship (fraught with anxiety that i wasn’t cool enough for her) we decided to staple. we made sure to do hall rush separately, to check that we really did have the same preferences, and lo and behold we ended up living together in happy chaos for a year. she is one of my best friends now.</p>
<p>i /highly/ recommend being open to the idea of a roommate. living with someone else is a worthwhile exercise in tolerance, thoughtfulness and adjusting, and if you make an effort during rush to find someone cool to room with you will usually not regret it.</p>
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<p>I agree with carmel. I had a double freshman year and a single every year after. As much as I enjoyed my privacy in later years, I actually sort of missed having a roommate from time to time (and my freshman year roommate and I didn’t have a particularly good relationship). A single might be nice, but a double is not as bad as it might seem, and even has hidden benefits. I would have actually hated to have a single freshman year. Just keep that in mind.</p>