Additional Reporting by Alison Fortune
It’s that time of year again: the scents of panic and stress drift through the air, speeding up the heart rates of anyone who dares take a breath. The housing lottery — and its infamously long waitlist — is back again, but this time it’s even worse than previous years.
As the old adage goes, “The Housing Lottery giveth, and the Housing Lottery taketh away.” Reed College guarantees housing for all incoming students, including transfer and exchange students. This, combined with the fact that 80 more returning students signed up for the Housing Lottery than the 2013-14 Lottery, meant that many returning students were faced with the prospect of finding off-campus housing when they had not originally planned to.
Director of Housing Clea Taylor says Resident Life is doing their best to work with students.
“Residence Life recognizes that these changing numbers have made some students and their families anxious,” she says. “We are doing our best to proactively communicate and give students information so they can make informed decisions about their housing.”
In the housing lottery, returning students are assigned randomly to cohorts, which are then taken in numerical order and assigned housing according to the students’ preferences until there are no rooms left. This year, on-campus housing filled up at cohort 7, which left a large chunk of the student body without the option of guaranteed housing on-campus, relinquishing their dreams of walking idly to Commons in the mornings to the whims of the waitlist. Returning students can cancel their on-campus housing contracts until May 1, and students on the waitlist will be offered housing as soon as it becomes available.
Students higher up on the waitlist can be optimistic, according to Taylor.
“Residence Life is, and will continue to be, in close contact with Admissions to confirm incoming student numbers and,” says Taylor, “if this number ends up being any lower than anticipated, we may be able to release some rooms reserved for incoming students after the June 15 incoming student housing deadline.”
Res Life promises to work closely with students on the waitlist, emailing them as soon as an open room pops up. They’ll be given a timeline in which they can accept the room and sign their contract. If the student declines the room or doesn’t respond, they’ll be moved to the bottom of the waitlist, and the next student in line will be given the opportunity to take the room. Res Life stressed the importance of students being constantly vigilant about checking their emails, and communicating swiftly with Res Life if Res Life contacts them.
“This will help keep the waitlist moving more efficiently and accurately and will help other students on the list get rooms more quickly,” elaborates Taylor.
“Because Reed guarantees housing to incoming students, the number of rooms we have to set aside for them can change from year to year,” she continues. “Because we have a set number of rooms on campus, changing the incoming class numbers has a direct impact on the number of rooms available to returning students.”
It is also expected to get worse.
“It does appear that housing lottery and waitlist numbers have been slowly but steadily rising over the last few years and that it is likely we will continue to have more students sign up for the lottery than we initially have spaces for,” Taylor confirms.
On a bright note, new dorms may be built soon, Taylor says.
“The College is currently in the discussion phase about the future of the Cross Canyon residence halls,” she says. “This could potentially mean renovation of the Cross Canyons or the building of a new residence hall.”
So hopefully, if this trend of increasing incoming students continues, Reed will be prepared to provide better assurance of housing for incoming students, as well as more room for its current students. Who knows, maybe we’ll even be able to live in dorms that aren’t literally sinking further into the ground each year (here’s looking at you, Naito).