Between the addition of Sophia Gordon Hall, the conversion of Stratton Hall to an all-single senior dorm, the addition of 10-person suites in Wren Hall and a variety of other changes, the face of housing at Tufts has changed significantly over the past year.
In the most recent housing lottery earlier this month, a high number of rising sophomores found themselves waitlisted and frustrated, spurring the creation of Facebook.com groups such as "This 'housing lottery' made me sad."
Given all the changes, are students satisfied with the revamped Tufts housing system? Students asked identified a number of issues they would like to improve - and suggestions for how to improve them.
"It's such a big problem, I don't know where to begin," senior Lala Ma said. "They need more housing to start with - it's a space problem."
Ma said she feels the current space on campus is not used optimally.
"They have all these singles in Latin Way and Hillsides, and I don't think it's optimal when there are people who are put in forced triples," she said.
Freshman Lee Koska, a rising sophomore who found himself waitlisted, said he thinks more focus should be placed on housing for underclassmen, who are guaranteed housing freshman and sophomore year.
"We're guaranteed housing - we should at least be allowed to pick who we're living with," he said, explaining that the waitlist system can split up potential roommates. "I think they should do the sophomore lottery before the junior lottery," he said. "All sophomores should at least be able to pick their roommate and have a choice of rooms."
Other students said they'd like to see the system of averaging lottery numbers - which began last year - reverted back to the former system in which students rooming together would use the higher of their two numbers in the lottery.
"I'm not a huge fan of the new averaging policy for lottery numbers, because if you have a good number, you were less likely to room with someone who had a low number," sophomore Erica Fine said.
Fine said, however, that she has had good luck with the current system.
"I'm fine with housing," she said. "I'm happy. My housing experience has been pretty positive. I was in a forced triple freshman year and it still turned out fine."
Ma had similar luck.
"My experience has been pretty good," she said. "If I had a bad lottery number, I would depend on my friends to pull me up."
Sophomore Minh Nguyen said he likes the variety of housing options available at Tufts.
"I definitely appreciate that we have options like all-freshman dorms and co-ed dorms and things like that," he said.
Sophomore Lisa Goldberg, who is an RA in an all-freshman hall, said her residents feel similarly.
"I'm pretty happy with it, and my freshmen are also really happy," she said.
