About 160 students who applied to live in the Graduate Living Center next year were turned away from what is known as the most unpopular housing on campus.
Defying predictions that one-third to one-fourth of the incoming junior class would be forced to live there, GLC sold out to the point that no groups entirely made of incoming sophomores received a spot in the lottery.
?There?s nobody there this year who didn?t volunteer for it,? Director of Residential Life Logan Hazen said.
Of 268 people who applied for early assignment to GLC, 104 received a spot, said Laurel Contomanolis, assistant director of Residential Life.
The only sophomores who got GLC housing were the ones who paired up with a current GLC resident, Contomanolis said.
Current residents were guaranteed a chance to stay in their apartments next year. 100 students chose this option.
With only 87 suites and one six-person cluster now open to 109 six-person groups, some students who were rejected from GLC are without other desirable housing options.
Sophomore Eric Meisner entered the GLC lottery as part of a six-person group. He has now been moved to the suites lottery, but has a low chance of getting one with a lottery number of 85.
?I?m probably going to end up in a double in [Susan B. Anthony Residence Halls],? he said. ?The prospect of living with my friends is now completely out the window.?
Sophomore Kate Cappel-letti chose GLC because she thought she had a good chance of getting a room.
?My alternate plan was to do a suite and I dropped out of that to go to GLC and now I?m screwed,? she said.
Cappelletti said she also expects to end up in a double in SBA.
The housing problem for juniors may prove especially compelling in the next several weeks. The minimum point value for six-person groups to fall within the first 72 spots ? and therefore secure a suite ? is 13.5. A group of six juniors without GLC retention points racks up only 12 points.
Rejected students who checked another housing option on their forms will now enter that lottery. However, students who did not check an alternatives will automatically be entered into the doubles lottery.
?We try to tell them over and over to plan for every eventuality? when filling out their forms, Hazen said.
This year, the incoming sophomore class will participate in its own lottery.
Residential Life will reserve rooms for sophomores in advance. After juniors and seniors participate in the traditional suite, cluster, singles and doubles lotteries, sophomores will pick from those reserved rooms.
?The primary motivation was so [sophomores] were not so low on the totem pole that they automatically went to de Kiewiet or Valentine,? Hazen said.
Because sophomores are required to live on campus, the university had promised that they would not be forced to GLC.
Now that GLC is full, Hazen said, the sophomore lottery will protect them from all getting placed in SBA, generally considered the second-least desirable housing.
Most of the reserved sophomore rooms will be in SBA, with some of them in doubles and suites in Towers, Contomanolis said. Residential Life has not yet decided the exact breakdown of the reserved rooms.
?I could make [SBA] all sophomores, but I don?t want to do that,? Contomanolis said.
?Freshman housing is an educational and philosophical concept the university is working toward,? Hazen said. ?Part of that concept is to prevent class housing. The result is that some juniors will have a lower priority than they might have had in an open-competition lottery.?
Vice President and University Dean of Students Paul Burgett said class-based housing may eventually develop on its own, but that the university is purposely circumventing it in the early, experimental stages of freshman housing.
?We don?t want to arbitrarily move to class housing before we have a year?s experience,? Burgett said.
Hazen said GLC was similarly popular years ago when the student body was larger. When population began decreasing because of the Renaissance Plan, Residential Life began to phase out the towers with the intention of selling them to the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Because fewer undergraduates were living there, and because Residential Life stopped programming and renovating, GLC became unpopular, Hazen said.
But with the advent of the unexpectedly large class of 2003, GLC became fully occupied again. Hazen said so many are choosing it now because Residential Life has promoted it.
If the undergraduate population were to grow even more, Residential Life could remove the graduate students who live there, Hazen said.
GLC residents? benefits include a $200 discount per semester and a free tier-two television plan.
?We purposely changed the student culture,? he said. ?People being there who want to be there make the building come alive in a positive way.?
Students who got a spot in GLC displayed two emotions ? some chose it and some settled for it.
Sophomore Kara Waugh said she genuinely wanted to live in GLC because apartment living sounded appealing and the walk is not much farther than from other residence halls. Junior Melanie Chesser, a retaining resident, said she likes the space and privacy.
But sophomore Andrew Berti said he chose GLC because he felt he couldn?t get housing in Hill Court.
Sophomore James Poggio also retained in GLC as his second choice.
?Freshman housing is on the quad and that?s where we really wanted to be,? Poggio said.
Hazen doesn?t see completely getting rid of GLC after the large class graduates because overall student retention is increasing and more students are choosing to live on campus.
?Apartment living suits many students? lifestyles,? he said. ?We?re probably going to need just one tower long-term.?
The next lottery, for six-person groups, will take place tonight.
