Dean of Residential Life Torin Moore clarified the situation. “This year, approximately 45 rising sophomores, about 40 rising juniors and 10 rising seniors opted out.” According to Moore, “there are 25 fewer students opting out this year than last year.”
The decrease in the number of students who opted out can be attributed to many factors, according to Moore, one of which is the re-opening of the Triangle. Firstly, “the Triangle is back and bigger” with the addition of 35 beds, said Moore. “The truth is that we have more senior housing with the addition on the Triangle — Hitchcock Dormitory is twice as large now. This has left more options for non-seniors … There is a lot of free space in the center of campus.” For example, Cohan Dormitory was open for rising juniors high in Room Draw, while several rising sophomore room groups found four-man Socials open in addition to the doubles in Crossett Hall and Stone Hall. Moore believes rising sophomores who came into room draw early Thursday night had more options than they thought.
Another difference in this year’s housing is the number of rooms available. After Room Draw last year, Residential Life counted 200 excess beds, but “the number of excess beds will vary based on how many students are actually on campus,” according to Moore. Therefore, ResLife believes there will only be about 50 excess beds next year. With fewer excess beds, students actually had fewer housing options at this year’s Room Draw. It seems that this removal of excess dorms, a cost-cutting measure, did not impact the number of students who decided to opt-out. In fact, it appears that the dorm closures enabled non-seniors to find more centrally located housing.
The opt-out process is one that varies, as no certain type of student is expected to opt-out. Last year, some students opted out to avoid living on the Hill, located further from campus, while others enthusiastically took rooms in Tyler and Plimpton. Moore described opt-out as a process that “varies with no consistent pattern. In some cases, individual students who go into Room Draw alone may choose to opt out, while other individual students within a group may choose to opt-out. The reasons for opting out are varied and personal.”
Amal Ali ’11E opted out “because the only options available for singles were Moore Dormitory, Cohan and basement Morris Pratt Dormitory when it was time for me to choose.” She hopes to be assigned a new dorm with “a spacious single, and one close to town and even closer to Val [such as] Hamilton, Morrow and Morris Pratt.”
Students who opted out will not receive housing assignments until the end of the summer, when Fall enrollment is finalized. Juniors studying abroad will leave vacancies throughout campus and many of these rooms will reenter the housing system for those who opted out. With approximately 100 students left to be housed, the Room Draw season has come to a close.