The Byzantine housing lottery now has a chance to get unkinked. A plan to rework the process passed by unanimous consent at the Georgetown University Student Assembly meeting Tuesday and may be presented to Interhall as soon as next week. This proposal should be welcomed by students and accepted by the University.
The proposal, put forward by Eamonn G. Carr, the student responsible for Grab & Go lunches, more predictable and more reliable. Currently, only first-years and sophomores are guaranteed housing, while juniors and seniors apply for eligibility for the remaining space. A ranking system uses points to determine who chooses housing first, with rising sophomores receiving the fewest points and seniors who did not live on-campus in their junior year receiving the most points. This process is confusing and leads to many juniors leaving campus in order to receive quality accommodations during senior year.
The proposal would guarantee housing students’ first three years. After determining how many juniors live off-campus, seniors would apply for eligibility for the remaining number of spaces. All sophomores would receive one selection point, all juniors two points and all seniors who receive eligibility would receive three points, regardless of whether or not they received housing junior year. The lottery system would stay the same, though adjusted to the new ranking system. This would be simpler and also harder for students to manipulate, insuring that housing reflected seniority.
This proposal is certainly promising, except for the fact that many in the class of 2007 have already opted to live off campus in order to improve their chances as seniors. Since the new system makes that gesture counterproductive, the new policy would not be implemented until 2006, making the class of 2009 the first to receive the three year guarantee.
Once again, the class of 2007 will make out like bandits. While the constantly shifting selection system forced many current juniors to live three to a room in the Southwest quad last year, the current sophomore class has been favored with an unusually high number of apartments this year and will still receive higher rankings than any other class in their senior year.
Carr estimates that the plan would provide housing for approximately 36 percent of seniors if every junior remained on campus. This is likely to be the case, because this plan removes all incentives for juniors to live off-campus; a clause states that students cannot exchange housing privileges in their junior year for their senior year.
This new system would be much easier to understand than the current system and would eliminate most of the confusion over eligibility that has plagued many previous systems. GUSA President Pravin Rajan should make every effort to implement this plan and make sure it stays in place long enough to become familiar.
