The University will release housing lottery numbers six weeks earlier than usual this winter, giving students with low numbers more time to find off-campus accommodations for next year.
Sophomores, who are not guaranteed housing for junior year, have complained in recent years that the Office of Residential Life did not give them enough time to find apartments.
Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senators Josh Belkin and Jill Bier discovered earlier this year that the numbers could be released earlier, but "no one got around to it," Belkin said. Through meeting with deans and Res Life staff, they prompted the changed in the release date.
Information and Technology Services (ITS) makes the assignments by randomly giving numbers to the list of enrolled students generated by the registrar's office. ITS then gives the list to Res Life, which generally publishes the numbers in March.
The registrar's office and ITS take their cues from Res Life, which eventually hopes to release numbers before Thanksgiving each year.
In a meeting last month, Associate Dean Jean Herbert suggested to Belkin and Bier that Acting Director of Residential Life Lorraine Toppi does not have sufficient support staff to release the numbers in the fall semester.
Tufts is currently searching for a permanent residential life director. Toppi has filled in as acting director since former director Anne Gardiner left in the summer of 2000.
Many upperclassmen choose to live off campus due to a lack of dorm rooms. The University housed only 24 percent of juniors during the 2000-2001school year. Last year's housing forecast by residential life anticipated that 380 to 400 of 1,257 seniors would live on campus.
Rents in areas surrounding Tufts are generally higher than in the rest of Medford and Somerville. But some students prefer to live off campus regardless of their lottery numbers, citing more freedom and independence.
Student demand has inflated area rents in recent years, leading some upperclassmen to want to live on campus. As more upperclassmen compete for rooms on campus, the housing lottery carries more weight than ever.
Many students begin their search for off-campus housing as early as November, before the new January release date.
"It's a step in the right direction, but it's still too late to get a good house," sophomore Wendy Carman said. "It really doesn't do much."
Sophomore Chris Carril looks forward to a November release date in the coming year. He said that an early release will "absolutely" help upperclassmen decide if they need to search for off-campus housing.
Students who prefer to live on-campus cite the unavailability of moderately-priced apartments in the area and the commute associated with living further away.
The University hopes to remedy the housing crunch by building a new dormitory for upperclassmen. Last spring, trustees announced they would finance the new dorm, which is currently in the planning stages and should be built within two or three years. The location, size, and design of the new dorm have not been decided.
But Belkin believes that overall progress is being made and will help upperclassmen. The early release of numbers will "empower juniors to get [housing] information sooner to make a stressful decision about housing, [instead of] at the end of the year," he said.
