The Office of Residential Life and Learning offered compensatory measures last month to the 148 freshmen who began the year living in forced triples by giving them housing lottery number advantages and extra dining points to offset their overcrowded living situations.
Still, many freshmen living in forced triples felt the recompense was too little too late.
ResLife also offered to remove one person from each forced triple that put in a request and place that student in a single or a double. Most declined the offer and opted to stay in triples.
"The principle of the [lottery number] boost is for freshmen living in forced triples to have priority of picking ahead of their class," Director of Residential Life Yolanda King said. "It's a way for us to compensate them."
While freshmen in triples have been offered lottery advantages in years past, for the first time,the university also gave them an additional $200 in Points Plus to compensate for their living inconveniences.
ResLife sent an e-mail to the 148 freshmen in January asking if they planned on using their lottery advantage for sophomore year housing. The students can opt to use their boosts in any one year at college. According to King, 63 freshmen expressed interest in using their "boosts" for next year.
"We then generated the [boosted] numbers of the 63 freshmen who had expressed interest in order of their current lottery numbers," King said. While the freshman class lottery number ranges from 1,500 to 2,999, these 63 freshmen were reassigned lottery numbers that fell in the range of 3,000 to 3,063, allowing them to pick next year's housing ahead of the rest of their class.
As for the other students, "the remaining [85] freshmen will be contacted again in the fall and asked whether they plan on using their boost junior year," King said.
Many freshmen who were placed in forced triples think that the lottery number advantage and extra Points Plus are not enough compensation. Freshman Madhuri Indaram lived in a forced triple for one month and described it as an "incredible inconvenience." Her roommate was permitted to move out of the room early last semester because she had allergies that made living in a triple particularly inconvenient.
"Speaking to other people, [the lottery number advantage] absolutely did not make up for living in a forced triple. From my own experience, it was extremely inconvenient and uncomfortable," Indaram said.
Indaram is one of the 63 freshmen who decided to use their lottery number advantages for sophomore year. "I decided to [use my number] sophomore year because I figure that I will be going abroad junior year, and senior year I may live off campus. This year seemed to make the most sense," she said.
Freshman Mike Cavicchi was similarly unsatisfied with living in a forced triple. He was allowed to move into a neighboring double early this semester after a resident of that room moved out.
"It was extremely impersonal and difficult to get to know either of your roommates one-on-one. It was also hard to hold your roommates accountable for messes because you didn't know who was responsible for the mess," Cavicchi said.
While Cavicchi called the lottery advantage a "nice little pat on the back," he suggested that a reduction in room and board fees would make more sense. "I know that people were complaining about how we should pay less for room and board because we are only getting a third of what people are technically getting," he said.
Unlike Indaram, Cavicchi decided not to use his lottery number advantage next year, saving the advantage until senior year. "I didn't choose to use my lottery advantage this year because I already had a high number, and I decided it would be more useful to use it in the future," he said.
ResLife sent out another e-mail in January offering tripled freshmen the option to move into newly available singles in Carmichael, Hodgdon, Lewis and South Halls. According to King, 12 freshmen responded to the e-mail and moved into the singles.
Despite widely expressed frustration among freshmen about living in forced triples, King was not surprised that so few freshmen decided to move into singles.
"By this time, roommates in forced triples have worked out most of their issues of sharing and study habits. I think a lot students have also grown close to the people in their halls and didn't want to leave," King said.
