Getting the lowest number in housing selection is every student’s dream – those living on campus, that is. This year, I was that person. I received number one in the housing selection lottery. The only problem – I am a part of Greek life on campus, and plan on living in the house next year as I have this year. So basically what happened was that another student that could have lived on campus in one of the upperclassmen residence halls, which are growing sparse as the years go on, got cheated out of a low number because someone who wasn’t going to live in residence halls was included in the lottery system.

And I’m not the only one in this situation. I’ve talked with a lot of people who weren’t going to live in the residence halls who got relatively low numbers in housing selection. I get that the school is trying to push student to live in the Woods because of the current financial situation, but doing it like this is a problem. And maybe it wasn’t on purpose, maybe the school just includes everyone automatically, but I think doing housing selection a little differently would really help things out. It would give students who want to live on campus a better chance of getting to live somewhere they want to live and enjoying their college experience. One of the hardest things about college is a bad rooming situation.

I think housing selection would work out a lot more smoothly if students who knew they weren’t living in a residence hall could tell Res Life that we didn’t need a number. Either that, or have those who wanted a number sign up with Res Life. It’s a little ridiculous that graduating seniors were on the list. I didn’t even bother to check the housing selection list because I knew where I was living and that I didn’t need a number. A friend told me that I had gotten the first number in the lottery. Give the students who really need those low numbers a bigger chance to get them.