The undergraduate housing office will perform extended testing on the online housing assignment system, delaying the housing assignment process to Wednesday at the earliest, said Mark D’Arienzo, associate director of undergraduate housing.

“Starting on Monday wouldn’t give students enough time to read things over,” D’Arienzo said.

Students are advised to have a shopping list of residence hall preferences, as priority numbers will hold less weight within each assignment group, he said.

“In the old system, if we had a group with priority numbers 1-25, we went down the list in order,” he said. “Now, if priority number 1 is taking too much time choosing their room, I can almost guarantee that priority number 25 will take it from under them.”

Students who wish to live in undergraduate housing but have not obtained priority numbers will have to wait until all the incoming freshmen have been assigned rooms.

Room assignments will involve a three-tier process and should take about five full days, he said. Students who wish to live in the Kemper Hall suites will be assigned their rooms first, followed by Foster-Walker Complex single rooms. Students with controlling priority numbers who wish to live in the other residence halls will only be allowed to pull in their desired roommates if both have registered for passwords on the housing office Web site.

The housing department expects to release more information by Monday.

– Christina Chaey