Housing hype leads to waitlisted worries

Choosing housing for next semester is a concern for many students. Rumors of too little housing and too many students is causing many students to stress, and made the housing lottery on April 24 an important time for students wishing to live on campus next semester.

By Melissa Unger

Staff Writer

Choosing housing for next semester is a concern for many students. Rumors of too little housing and too many students is causing many students to stress, and made the housing lottery on April 24 an important time for students wishing to live on campus next semester.

“Being a freshman, everyone told me that it was going to be really hard for me to get a room if I didn’t stay in the suite I already had,” said Brittani Spillar, a feshman. “I knew I didn’t want to keep my same room so I went into the lottery.”

Housing selection began at 5:15 p.m. for graduate students and then moved on down the class ranks. By the time freshmen chose their rooms, all males were automatically waitlisted, as were all students with a lottery number larger than 100.

Katie Lantz, a waitlisted freshman who plans to hold out for a single room, said, “I was really nervous about the housing lottery and I figured I would be put on the waitlist. I’m not too worried. I know I will have a room and it will work out. I was number 82 out of the freshmen and didn’t get the double that I planned on. But I am pretty high on the waitlist so hopefully I will get what I want.”

“In total, there were only 245 people who went into the housing lottery,” said Robin Anke, associate dean of students and director of residence life.“We knew going into it that people were going to be waitlisted, but students need to understand that if they paid their housing deposit, they are guaranteed a room on campus.”

There were 165 “same room” requests turned in for the next semester and everyone who requested a room in Farrell and DeChantal Hall were able to get one. All resident students will be given a dorm room on campus because the Marriott Hotel in Greensburg will not be used next year.

“I am almost 99 percent positive that we won’t be using the Marriott next semester,” said Anke. “The reason we had to house students there last year was because we had so many students request rooms and then decide not to live on campus.”

This year, to ensure that rooms are not reserved by students who do not plan on returning, the housing deposit will be refunded to students if they withdraw by June 1.
According to Anke, all students on the waiting list will be placed in a room at some point in the upcoming weeks. In most cases, she is usually able to accommodate students’ requests for singles and doubles.

“Every summer we have students who decide to transfer, or who decide to move off campus. We just have to wait and see how peoples’ housing plans play out,” Anke said.
After hours of picking, choosing, and maneuvering students in and out of rooms, the lottery ended around 9:30 p.m. As far as the 2009 incoming freshmen go, freshmen honors students will still have the option of being housed in DeChantal, only this year, the honors rooms are being advertised as triples so that having nine students to a suite will not come as such a shock.

“This is probably the smoothest year ever, as far as housing goes,” Anke said. “Since we divided the lottery up by class rank and by number, room selection was very orderly.”