When administrators announced the end of Northwestern’s housing lottery last quarter, they said that the new system, combined with the completion of Slivka Hall, should allow all students seeking on-campus housing to find it.
Gregg Kindle, director of residential life, told The Daily in February that the additions of Kemper and Slivka halls should ensure that every student seeking housing would be accommodated.
Now, after more than a week of working with the new system, a waiting list might be developing, but Mark D’Arienzo, associate director for university housing, said the list will not be as extensive as in previous years.
“If there is going to be a waiting list, it’s going to be a very, very small waiting list,” he said.
In past years, the waiting list has held 200 to 300 students, but D’Arienzo said he expects this year’s list to contain fewer than 50 names.
About 30 men arrived at Annenberg Hall on Tuesday night to find that housing for men had closed in all dorms.
“We thought we might have to live in a tent or someone’s bathroom,” said Dave Deterding, a Weinberg freshman who was unable to secure housing with roommate Nick Nordseth, despite arriving two hours early for his appointment.
Students who were unable to secure housing Monday and Tuesday nights were requesting doubles, D’Arienzo said. He noted, however, that he did not know how many students had been turned away.
At tonight’s last round of assignments, D’Arienzo will meet Deterding and Nordseth when their next time slot arrives. Also tonight, like Wednesday night, students who have not yet been able to find housing will be able to pick from housing options that either were not chosen in previous rounds or were given up by students who chose them.
Deterding, whose intended roommate had No. 1,580, said a call to D’Arienzo helped ease his frustrations about the process.
“I’m feeling better about it now,” said Deterding, who added that D’Arienzo hopes to find them a double.
D’Arienzo had estimated that Wednesday night’s round of housing would offer about 40 singles available for men or women and some doubles for women.
The new housing system is not intended to ensure that all students will receive the type of housing they request, D’Arienzo said.
“Any housing assignment system past or present never guaranteed a type of room or specific placement,” he said.
D’Arienzo also said that in past years all students on the waiting list have received housing.
“We’ve been able to exhaust the waiting list so that no one has gone without housing in all the years that I’ve been here,” D’Arienzo said.
But students cannot be placed on the waiting list unless they turn in a card to the Undergraduate Housing Office, D’Arienzo said.
“If a person is interested in housing and has not turned in a card (either) for an assignment or to be placed on a wait list, we cannot be sure that person is interested in housing,” he said.
