The housing department released its housing selection calendar and eligibility ranking system on Tuesday evening at an informational meeting in McShain Lounge. Under this year’s calendar, current sophomores and juniors must apply for eligibility if they plan to live on campus next year, and will then be entered into the housing selection process if they receive eligibility.

Current freshmen do not need to apply for eligibility, as all rising sophomores are guaranteed housing.

Rising seniors who are not living on campus for the fall 2004 semester will receive four points for eligibility. Rising juniors who wish to live on campus next year will receive the same number of points.

Rising seniors who lived on campus for the fall 2004 semester will only receive three points, because they exercised the option to use their third year of housing during their junior year.

“Because we can only currently guarantee two years of housing on campus, we thereby will give higher preference to rising seniors who are not living on campus this year,” Jonalyn Ware Greene, executive director of student housing, said.

The eligibility sign up period for current sophomores and juniors lasts from Oct. 12-18.

Unlike last year, when students had to sign up individually, students may sign up for eligibility in groups of one, two, three or four this year. This system was discontinued last year.

Last year, students could only enter the housing selection process with other students that received eligibility, which sometimes broke up groups of friends looking to live together. The new system seeks to ensure that pairs or groups of friends can stay together if they receive eligibility.

“After students sign up for eligibility, they will be entered into the computer, which will assign the group a random number based upon the average number of points that each group has,” Director of Housing and Conference Services Jacquelyn Rack said. “This number will also serve as their housing lottery number for selection.”

After the eligibility period, the selection period begins for singles at the end of October. Apartments, townhouses and Copley suites will draw in mid-November, and residence halls, in early December.

The selection period for current freshmen will not begin until the beginning of next February. Karen Frank, vice president for university facilities and student housing, said Wednesday that the earlier housing selection period for rising seniors and juniors was being done to accommodate students concerns raised last year about the housing process.

The university began the year with over 200 empty beds after nearly half of the rising juniors elected to move off-campus and defer a possible third year of housing until their senior year.

Feedback gathered from students living off-campus indicated that they had decided to move off-campus before the housing selection process even began out of concerns that if they did not receive housing, or if they received a less desirable housing pick, there would be fewer off-campus options later in the spring, Frank added.

This year’s earlier housing selection aims to assure students that even if they do not receive on-campus housing, they will have plenty of time to find desirable off-campus housing in the spring semester.

“We’re doing this specifically in response to students who expressed concerns about looking for housing too late in the year,” Frank said.

The current regulations set forth by the housing department generated many questions from concerned students who have yet to decide where they will be living next year.

In response, Rack stated that the Housing Office would be slightly more lenient with regard to housing requests. “We are going to take this page by page, one step at a time,” Rack said. “But our ultimate goal is to make this process a little less stressful.”

Greene said that concerns about applications to be resident assistants or to study abroad were unnecessary, as housing selection typically occurs before students knew about their acceptance into these programs.

“We want all students to go through the process for the sake of not knowing.” Rack said. “If students are accepted into their programs, they will easily be able to drop their housing agreement with no penalty.”

Greene maintained that all of the details of the housing selection process are not yet finalized, especially regulations regarding transfer students who have only been living on campus for one year.

“Currently, transfer students in the Class of 2006 will only be given three points, but we hope to work out some sort of agreement later on,” Greene said.

Additionally, Greene said that the eligibility sign up process has not been a problem in the past. “We use the eligibility process only to gauge how many students are interested in living on campus next year. If one is cut off from eligibility, they will be put on a waitlist for on campus housing,” Greene said.

The housing department saw unprecedented demand for on-campus housing in 2003 with the opening of the Southwest Quad, forcing the university to create 123 triples in double occupancy rooms to accommodate the student demand.

Greene also attributed the high recent demand for on-campus housing to the events of September 11 and the fact that more parents want to have their children live on campus for added safety. “This is why we have not been able to guarantee a third year of housing for the past two years,” Greene said.

Students had mixed feelings about the current housing situation.

“I almost have to decide whether I want to live on campus next year or the year after that, based on my eligibility,” Caleb Muhs (MSB ’07) said, noting that chances for eligibility are less for those students who have lived on campus for their junior year.

Others seem to be more upbeat about the current situation, as it will give them more certainty about where they’ll be living sooner.

“This new process of fall selection seems fairly beneficial, as I have a good chance of getting eligibility. I also know that if I am studying abroad, they will not hold that against me – [the housing office] seems to be pretty accommodating in this respect,” Angel Desai (SFS `07) said.

The housing department will be running the selection process online for the second year in a row, as a result of high student satisfaction with the system.