More housing lottery numbers offered to juniors, seniors than beds available

Correction: A previous version of this article placed a quote by David Watts out of context. The article implied that Watts was referring to junior and senior housing assignments when he was, in fact, referring to housing assignments at the School at the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA). The article has been updated to reflect this change. The Daily regrets this error.

The Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) changed how juniors' and seniors' housing assignments were distributed this year, by assigning them more lottery numbers than beds available. This allows more students security for on-campus housing earlier in the process, according to ORLL Director Josh Hartman.

Hartman indicated that this process enables students to make last-minute decisions about their housing arrangements, as a lottery number does not have any financial implications.

“It's important to note that the way our housing policy is worded right now, you're not financially committed to the room," Hartman said. "Students can ... walk away and they won't have any financial obligation. It's great for the students because it lets you keep your options open all the way until the very end."

Additionally, students are now given the option of pulling out of the housing selection early in order to allow more students waiting for on-campus housing to get off the waitlist sooner, according to Hartman. He emphasized that his goal is to have more people between now and Feb. 21 cancel their applications.

“My goal is for the cancellation processes is to help the students on the waitlist and get off it as quickly as possible," Hartman said. "I don't want people to have to sign leases or have an issue with the off-campus place if they signed the lease."

This past year, the ORLL assumed that everybody who had a lottery number was going to pick a space, but this was not the case.

"There were about 100 people who got a lottery number and they just never selected a bed during the lottery process,” Hartman said.

Assistant Director for Housing Services David Watts explained that students may choose not to use their lottery numbers if they find housing options that fit their needs better.

“It could be that [students] only wanted to live on campus if they could have Sophia Gordon," Watts said. "[And] they realized they weren't going to get some SoGo space so they were like alright … let’s go off campus now."

Yet, students may choose to keep their lottery number in the case that they do not find better housing elsewhere. 

"Depending on how good their lottery number [is] and how nice of a space they can find off-campus, they can weigh their options... other students keep [the lottery number] as a backup plan,” Watts said.

Angelic Sosa, assistant director for residential operations, indicated that many students who decide to live off-campus do not notify the ORLL of their decision, which prevents ORLL from removing the students' names from the lottery or waitlist.

“[Last year] there were so many people with lottery numbers or waitlist numbers who did find stuff off-campus and hadn't notified us," Sosa said. "That ends up pushing out our process in being able to help students a lot earlier with offering up space on campus."

Watts added that students cannot be offered a space on campus for only one semester, then choose to live off-campus for the other, which takes away the opportunity from other students who would otherwise receive housing for the full academic year.

Hartman added that many SMFA students find it easier to find off-campus housing near the Fenway campus, making it unlikely that they would be impacted by this change.

“The opportunity for rental properties down near Fenway is actually higher than it is up here and in a different market," Hartman said. "A lot of SMFA students in the past found off-campus housing nearby easier than our Medford and Somerville students have found up here. We're working with them on a case by case basis."