Rolling the dice: A look at Room Draw

Perched on top of the tower at the south end of Patton Hall, Chris McParland '01 lives in a spacious six-person suite that sprawls over two floors with an elevator waiting just outside that opens next to the basement laundry room.

Students hoping to live in T12 Patton next year had better be drawing today, the first day of room draw for upperclassmen. McParland and his roommates were the fourth group to draw last year.

On the other end of the spectrum, students could always end up like Marc Melzer '02, cramped into 303 Edwards, a nine-sided, mushroom-shaped 102 sq.-ft. single. It is so small that the bed cuts diagonally across the room. The walls are so narrow that even the standard desk cannot fit. Melzer, who calls the room livable but not comfortable, had to get a smaller desk.

Melzer is actually lucky to be where he is now. His group was assigned almost the last draw time possible for students who handed their forms in on time last year. When their turn came to draw, there were no more rooms left and they had to go on the wait list.

Roughly 75 to 100 upperclassmen go on the waitlist each year. Housing coordinator Adam Rockman, who may wield more power than President Shapiro in the eyes of students, said the University does not guarantee housing to upperclassmen — though they have never actually turned students away.

"We don't want to have anyone without a room," he said.

Rockman said he has received e-mails and phone calls from students worried about their draw times. He empathizes with the students but tries to assure them it's not the end of the world, speaking very honestly about the students' situations so as not to raise false hopes, he said.

Rockman added that students hoping for a single with bad draw times should put themselves on the wait list to be housed in August. Not everyone on the wait list will be able to get singles and will be placed in a suite with people they do not know, he added.

Though there is no one location or room that is considered the best on campus, Rockman said, "In the last few years the trend has been that rising seniors with the best draw times pick rooms in Patton/Wright, 1903, and Cuyler."

Rockman also predicted Little Hall, currently under renovation and scheduled to be reopened this fall, would be popular with seniors.

Calling Little "really nice," Rockman said, "We're expecting a lot of seniors who want to draw into Little and also into Patton," which was renovated two years ago.

With the construction of Scully Hall in 1998 and the near-complete renovations in Little, there will be a good number of singles available to seniors, Rockman said.

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Juniors drawing in the morning of the first day of junior room draw have the best shot at singles, but those drawing later are unlikely to draw a single room, Rockman said.

He noted that some of the last rooms to go in upperclass draw have included quads in Brown and the smaller rooms in the dorms on the west side of campus near University Place, including Pyne Hall, 1901, Henry and Foulke Halls. He said he believes these dorms are generally less popular because there is a perception that they are on the far side of the campus.

Dod Hall will be closed for renovations next year and Lockhart Hall will be appropriated for graduate student housing. Lockhart will then be closed the following year for renovations. There are also plans to construct a new dorm on Poe Field that should add more singles in the next few years.

Fortunately for Daniel Caycedo '02, the wait-list process worked out. Having been wait-listed because he turned in his form two weeks after the deadline, he said by e-mail he was placed in Dod with a stranger, with whom he has since become friends.

"People are just stupid if they get disappointed because they can't be near someone," Caycedo said. "Really, get over it. If your time happens to suck in the draw, get over that, too."