Numbers for next semester's housing lottery will be released within the next few days.
This will be the first use of a new lottery system, approved by 69.1 percent of student respondents to an online survey Nov. 10-13.
The system makes sophomore year numbers reciprocal of senior year numbers.
"If you have the fifth best number [for sophomore housing], you'll have the fifth worst number [for senior housing]," Assistant Bursar for Housing Operations Jim Moodie said.
The system will be used for future years but will not affect current sophomores and juniors.
"It would be hard to implement changes for the sophomore or junior class," Tufts Community Union President Jeff Katzin said. "A current sophomore who had a great number last year isn't going to be in favor of the system."
Junior year lottery numbers will continue to be randomly assigned.
Freshmen will receive their lottery numbers for next year on Friday, Dec. 9, according to a press release from Director of Residential Life Yolanda King.
Sophomores and juniors may receive their numbers as early as today or as late as Monday, Dec. 12, Moodie said.
Freshmen will receive their numbers for the following two years before the lottery in March. Sophomores will also receive their numbers for the following year next semester, Moodie said.
An ad published in Monday, Dec. 5's Daily from the Office of Residential Life said lottery numbers would be available Thursday. "The release date has been extended in order to fine- tune the mechanism that will be used in the distribution of the lottery numbers," King's press release said.
The program that generates the lottery numbers had to be rewritten to allow it to hold more than one number for each student at a time, Moodie said. Changing the code delayed the release of the lottery numbers.
"The original goal had been to provide all three numbers immediately," he said.
The program can only post one number at a time online, so next year's numbers must be removed before future years' numbers can be posted, according to Dean of Students Bruce Reitman.
The numbers cannot be removed from the Web site until every student logs on and checks.
To determine the order in which they choose rooms with roommates, current freshmen and futures students will average their lottery numbers with those of their roommates.
The order was previously determined by the higher number of the pair. This change was made to prevent two students - one with a bad number, one with a good number - from pairing up and getting an early lottery pick both sophomore and senior years.
"For the reciprocity to be meaningful, you had to go to averaging," Reitman said.
At the lottery in the spring, Moodie expects appointments to be scheduled for certain ranges of numbers. Roommate pairs would be expected to come in for the appointment for the range that into which the average of their numbers falls.
The final decision for this has not yet been made, but it will be made by Reitman and King.
Freshmen who were forced into living in triples this year will get a bonus from the new system. Their sophomore year numbers will be improved, but that will not lower their senior year numbers.
This is "an advantage they're given in compensation," Reitman said. "It doesn't help or hurt them senior year."
The new system will reserve suites in Sophia Gordon Hall for current juniors to choose, similar to Latin Way and Hillsides. There will also be rooms available outside of complete suites.
There are still scenarios that have yet to be worked out and coded for in the new lottery system, including dealing with transfer students, students who graduate early and students who go on leaves of absence, Moodie said.
