Imagine you are applying to be a resident assistant. While your upperclassman peers pair up and enter housing selection in late October, you diligently work on your RA application for the mid-November deadline. You then spend the next few months sitting back comfortably envisioning your private single or your spacious apartment.

But come February, your application is turned down; all your plans are moot and you have to scramble to find a housing arrangement.

The Office of Housing Services’ deadlines and the Office of Residence Life’s RA application dates are wholly incompatible. They put an unwarranted strain on both the RA applicants and their would-be roommates by unnecessarily forcing both groups to take a gamble.

The staggered deadlines force RA applicants to enter the housing process just like everyone else so that they do not find themselves homeless if they’re not selected to be RAs.

If the RA applicant is offered a position that requires him or her to live in a single, these potential roommates are left with a last-minute hole to fill. For an applicant offered an apartment, his or her roommates are left with the difficult choice of living with a friend or opting for a place of their own choosing.

Making the deadlines line up is understandably difficult; however, the current system is far too stressful for students and is in desperate need of a makeover. Such a restructuring would require the offices of Housing and Residence Life to team up and coordinate a schedule that simplifies the process for everyone involved.

If Residence Life and Housing want to put less strain on their RAs and the roommates who live with them, then the two university organs must cooperate. Students willing to be RAs should not be forced to endure a limbo phase when the issue could be solved by arranging the dates to minimize overlap.