In September, the University announced that it was moving the on-campus housing sign-up process from mid-March to mid-October. After the initial deadlines passed, Residential Life received mixed reviews from the student body about the change.
Some students said they were unable to finalize their plans within the shortened time frame, which added panic to the process.
“I dealt with the pains of finicky potential roommates, and found myself searching for housing long past that end of October deadline,” said Matt Contino, a sophomore triple-majoring in anthropology, English and philosophy who will be living off-campus next year.
While many returning students said that it was difficult to plan living arrangements so early, freshmen had to make plans while still adjusting to college life.
“A lot can change in a few months, and later we may not want to live in the same community, with the same roommate or even on campus,” said Emily Sham, an undeclared freshman who will be living in Marcy next year.
In addition to the new deadline, ResLife waived the $200 deposit fee and set up a new system allowing students to manually rearrange their housing choices. Students who have signed up for on-campus housing can continue to switch their rooms and living communities into the spring.
Alex Liu, president of the Student Association and a senior majoring in philosophy, politics and law, said that it is too early to judge whether the new policy is beneficial. But he added that ResLife’s change to let students alter their arrangements into the spring semester is crucial to easing the transition.
“Moving forward, the success or failure of the change will depend on ResLife’s ability to honor its commitment to flexibility and accommodation,” Liu said.
According to Paola Mignone, the associate director of business affairs for ResLife, students responded positively to the extension to switch rooms and roommates and many liked having the ability to make those changes online.
Mignone also said that the University reported an 11 percent increase in student demand for housing from last year. All 153 of the newly created singles for upperclassmen are taken, but there are spaces available for students in Hillside, College-in-the-Woods, Newing and Hinman for those who forgot to sign up or would like to change their arrangements.
There have been some cancellations, which according to Mignone were primarily from students who were transferring. Students who cancel have to pay a $200 charge.
“We are currently near capacity and have students still expressing interest in living on campus,” Mignone wrote in an email. “We hope that this fee helped to ensure that students who went through the housing process were serious about living on campus.”
Some students, though, said that the online sign-up system added extra confusion to the process. When trying to log in, Dominica Wolinski said she and her friends would frequently experience delays, only to have the site be unavailable.
“It was scary that every 30 seconds the system would crash,” said Wolinski, a sophomore majoring in finance. “It needs to be able to handle all of the different students trying to log in at once.”
Others said that they would select a room, only to find out that someone else had taken it earlier.
“It almost felt like a game because you don’t actually know whether or not you’re fighting with someone else for the same room,” Sham said.
The deadline change was met with a spike in demand for off-campus housing as well. 20 Hawley, a student-housing complex located Downtown, was 39 percent booked at the end of November 2013 but over 63 percent booked before this Thanksgiving break.
Nick Tzavis, the general manager at Twin River Commons, said that they also noticed drastic changes from previous years.
“This year we saw an unprecedented amount of leasing activity,” Tzavis said. “What we’re not sure of is if it was just due to an increase in demand for off-campus housing, or if it was directly caused by the deadline.”
According to Mignone, although students have mixed feelings about the earlier deadline, the change was an overall success. She said that aligning the on-campus deadline with off-campus lease signing streamlined the process.
“Some students like the fall timeline, but as we know, some students want the process to happen in the spring,” Mignone wrote. “The fall process has gone well though, and we believe that we made the right decision for our students.”