More than a week after housing assignments were announced, some students are still dissatisfied with the results of a new preference-based housing selection system.
Complaints from students have ranged from not being placed in their requested room assignments to a lack of transparency in the new system.
In the past week, the wait list has dropped from 700 to 544, said Seth Weinshel, assignments director of GW Housing. Of those students, 80 are sophomores and guaranteed to receive University housing. Upperclassmen are not guaranteed housing.
This is the inaugural year of the new computerized selection system in which students requesting University housing rank preferences about room specifications. In previous years, a lottery number was used for students to select where to live based on their randomly assigned number, which is based on their number of credit hours.
“If all that a student is looking for is a bed on campus, we should be able to get them one,” Weinshel said. “They shouldn’t worry.”
A main gripe of rising seniors is the lack of transparency with the new wait list. After being wait listed for housing, junior Christian Woodside decided to voice his frustration with the new system and created an online petition to bring the old lottery system back.
“Me and my roommate decided to do it as a joke,” Woodside said. “I didn’t even tell anyone about it.”
Despite the lack of publicity, the online petition has received about 90 signatures from students.
Woodside said he is not angry that he did not get housing, but wants to know where he stands on the wait list. He said he wants to determine if he has a chance to receive University housing or if he should begin looking for off-campus housing.
Weinshel said with the new computerized system there is no way to tell when a student will be taken off the wait list because the system does not allow for a predetermined order. Every time a student is placed, it is a random selection of the software, he said.
If there comes a point when the University administrators do not think they will be able to place some students in housing, the students will be informed. Weinshel said he does not see that happening anytime soon.
Another group of students still unhappy with the new system are some rising sophomores placed in Fulbright and Potomac halls, which housed freshmen this year.
Freshman Kate Connors said she is upset about living in Potomac House for a second year. She is one of several students who joined an online social networking group on the Facebook Web site to try to find students willing to conduct a room swap and offered to pay to switch into a room with a kitchen.
“We would definitely pay a few hundred dollars to move into the West End,” she said. “We’re in a bind. The only place we can go is Fulbright.”
On the Housing Program’s room swap Web site, more than one-third of Potomac residents have indicated their desire to switch out of the building.
Since the account system was enabled last Thursday, about 60 room swap requests have been approved, Weinshel said. To swap a room, a student must find another student who is willing to change rooms. The University does not facilitate room swaps.
The reaction to the housing change was not entirely unexpected, Weinshel said, but the decision to convert Potomac and Fulbright to sophomore dorms meant that incoming freshmen will be housed in Crawford, Madison and Mitchell, none of which are new or have kitchens.
Last week, University officials said 82 percent of students received on of their top three housing requests.
