Resident Assistants - What are the chances

Parents Forum
1

My son is a freshman at Purdue University. He’s in the flight technology program. He has a 3.79 GPA for the first semester, doesn’t drink and never has (yes I’m sure. .

My son had applied for an RA position. We were really hopeful since it would be such a huge help in paying for college! He’s also in the Reserves with the Air Force. Unfortunately, in regards to tuition reimbursement, he’s receiving a third of what we were told he would receive for joining up. So this RA position was something we really were hoping for.

He just found out he did not make the second cut for becoming an RA next year. Nothing can be done about that obviously, but just to make him feel better about his chances next year, I wondered if a big part of the decision not to forward him on in the choices was because he was a freshman this year. I would think they probably want older students.

Does anyone know about these things and know if that’s part of the decision making process or not?

2

I have heard that RA positions are VERY competitive - everyone wants the price break! It makes sense that they would give priority to older students.

3

It certainly depends on the school but I’d say that most RAs are juniors/seniors. But I can’t say if that is the reason he did not make the cut or not.

4

I have never heard of sophomores becoming RAs. (my H and S were both RAs, as seniors)

5

At least at my school the year of the student did not significantly matter in the hiring process. In fact part of the reason why my friends and I were able to get the positions that we did was because we had a strong connection with our experiences in residence life freshmen year and could speak in depth about the type of programs that we would do. Most of us got put in a freshman dorm situation which is what most of us wanted. It may be different at your sons school, but you gotta remember it is a competitive position to get and I think having two rounds in the process shows that. I have known applicants that didn’t get the position the first time but got the position when they applied a second time after they have gotten a little more experience under their belt or there are a few more openings. It’s no secret that most ras get rehired so it may just be a matter that there were a great deal of returning ras that year and they didn’t need to hire as many new people. Best of luck to your son!

6

Thanks so much for the replies! I just texted my son that apparently they probably prefer upper classmen, but that a big part of the selection is knowing that the student has been involved in student activities. I told him to be sure to be a participant in things, and also to keep notes of creative ideas of things he might want to do if he is someone in charge. We’ll try again next year. I really appreciate you all taking time to help us understand the process and give us hope for the future.

7

Your son doesn’t meet the minimum requirements posted on Purdue’s website
http://www.housing.purdue.edu/ResidentialLife/residentassistant.html

. Minimum of one year living in residence halls at the college/university level

They do prefer upperclassmen. I think my D says the RAs she knows are junior and senior. It also helps if your son shows that he is out-going, sociable, capable of leading and organizing. The RAs are required to organize events, resolve conflicts, helping the residents with various things (including some jobs that are not so appealing, i.e shovel snow off sidewalks, cleaning bathrooms in emergengy (when the cleaning staffs are not available) . A few of the things that kept my D from applying for the job)

8

My husband and I (and many of our friends) were RAs a million years ago. What made a difference in the hiring process, which we were both involved with for several years, was interviews. At our university, at that time, there were interview committees consisting of current RAs, Residence Hall Directors, the Director of Housing, and a few students at large. We were looking for friendly, appropriately assertive poeple who knew the campus, had been involved in student activities, and knew what to do “if”.

It was important for RAs to be comfortable with the dual rolls of friendly advisor and first line “disciplinarian”.
It was important for RAs to be able to be appropriately assertive while understanding their limits and knowing when to call for help.

How do you deal with a passed out unknown drunk in the stairwell?
How do you create a sense of warmth and approachability while also not being either s pushover or a jerk?

Does this person seem like someone we could work with? Could we rely on him?

Most of those qualities are more evident in an older student, but not always. And some people just aren’t well suited to do the job with success and joy. (Just as some people are not well suited to teach kindergarten, or to work alone in a research lab, or to travel two weeks a month, or to make cold sales in their jobs.)

9

It very much depends on the school. Most RA’s I knew/know are sophomores as upperclassmen want to move off campus (and in my day, could get jobs at restaurants and bars making more money). My daughter’s RA last year was a sophomore but is doing it again as a junior. Other daughter’s roommate from last year was chosen for this year. She’s a very opinionated person and I think that’s what they look for. It’s also a school that is heavily male, and they need 1/4 of the RAs to be female. She did quit the sports team they are/were on, but I’m not sure that being the RA had anything to do with it.

Maybe there is something similar your son could do to earn room and board. Houseboy in a sorority? On site maintenance man at a nearby church? My nephew was just a hasher (waiter) in a sorority for 2 lunches per week. He got $10/hr plus a meal (that to him was worth another $15 bucks).

10

RA positions are VERY VERY competitive jobs at most schools. Please don’t make your son think he will be a shoe in for this even next year,or the year after. These jobs are highly sought by students.

In addition, RA positions are jobs…and there is a huge time commitment. This will be considered when your son applies next year. It will need to be clear that he has the time to dedicate to this job.

11

One thing to ask your son is to assess his own application process. Was there anything he could improve on? Were there any questions which he didn’t know how to answer? One thing that I definitely thought that helped is showing that you had a strong idea what the job entailed, had programs in mind, showed a friendly and caring attitude beyond just wanting the job for compensation, proper time management skills, thoughtful responses on how to deal with situations, enthusiasm, and experiences to back up that you would be good for the job. I agree that it is likely heavily centered around the interview in which they try to determine the best candidates.

I agree that it is one of the most competitive jobs for a college student as well as one that handles one of the most responsibility, so I wouldn’t get too down about it, you can certainly try again next year. Another thing that helped my friends and I when applying for these positions was a strong connection with the hall community already. So whether that meant helping my RA plan events that I thought were interesting or participating in hall council (or the equivalent at your school), these were ways to show a strong investment in the community as well as communication/planning skills. If you include references on your application, they could also vouch for you when you apply

12

Most RA’s are upperclassmen or graduate students. I would check with Purdue on their criteria.

13

I think it really varies by school. If he really wants to do it he should live in the dorms again nest year and be active on the residence hall council or what ever they call it there. Hobnobbing with the Dean of Student Life can only help. I bet if he made it to the second cut they would probably keep him in mind if an RA bows out of the program. Have you looked at Reddit to see if there’s a forum for Perdue? It’s a good place to ask anonymously.

14

I used to be a residential hall director and hired RAs for my staff. The process varies from school to school, but there are some similarities across schools.

My school didn’t prefer upperclassmen over sophomores. Sophomores were welcome if they were mature and we thought they could handle the work. In fact, we often put sophomores in our first-year and sophomore halls, although we did try to avoid putting them in mainly junior and senior halls. On my area’s staff of 35 I’d say during a given year, around 1/4 to 1/3 of them were sophomores.

What is really important is some kind of transferable role or skills that the student can use to inform the RA role. We used those for two reasons. One, having held a similar role in the past was a good indicator that someone was actually interested in being an RA and wasn’t just applying for the free housing. Two, having that background is tremendously useful when actually working as an RA. There were lots of similar positions we saw and hired for: some people were RAs or prefects at their boarding schools, but most people don’t have that kind of experience. What we also saw often were mentors, tutors, camp counselors, peer mediators (this is a really, really great background to have!), crisis hotline volunteers, hospital volunteers, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, that kind of thing. Any kind of experience like that would be a huge help to an RA application. (One of my favorite applicants was a freshman - but he had taken two years off school to do a Mormon mission abroad. He talked about how his experiences as a missionary were useful and transferable to the RA position. He ended up getting hired.)

I will also add this: My school had an ROTC program, and we were always careful when considering applicants from ROTC. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it - it usually indicates a level of discipline and maturity that other students don’t have. But ROTC is very time-consuming, and some students have trouble balancing the two. We did the same kind of mental calculus for any of the other activities on campus that were known to be particularly time-consuming -any kind of student government position, a couple of activities we knew were super-crazy, or any student who seemed overly involved in a lot of things. Students who had those listed on their application either had to have some very compelling, well-thought out plan for managing them OR indicate that they were planning on dropping an activity or two (or more) to accommodate the RA position. (However, that doesn’t mean you can’t be involved on campus as an RA, and we liked our RAs to be visible on campus. Our RAs usually tended to do 2-3 other things, and a lot of them were athletes. You just have to strike a balance.)

I know the Reserves are not the same, but a lot of people do not know what the Reserves entails so your son should be ready with an explanation for how much/little time it takes up and how easy it is to schedule RA responsibilities around the Reserves. FWIW, one of my favorite RAs ever was a National Guardsman while he was in school (AND he was in a fraternity AND he was the president of his Greek council AND he had other leadership and activities on campus AND his grades were excellent. He’s doing a PhD at Berkeley now. AND he was a delightful human being).

Also important: get to know the current RAs and attend events in your own building! We absolutely took that into account when evaluating people. I trusted my RAs and relied on them heavily to bring good people to my attention. No RA wants a dead weight on their team, so they only recommended good people to me. And they play a big role in the process - senior RAs often conduct the interviews along with RDs and more junior RAs help with the process in other ways. One of my other favorite RAs (aw man, I just loved my RAs in general) was really involved with residential life before he became an RA and helped his floor RA coordinate and plan activities. Understandably, RAs also often want to work with their friends, so forming a good (genuine) rapport with your RA or an RA in general is a good idea. Frankly, getting to know your RA(s) is a lot more important and helpful than hobnobbing with the Dean. Our Dean was not at all involved in the selection process.