With fewer students on the housing waitlist than last year, everybody who remains in line to live on campus next year will probably have the opportunity, assuming some students remove themselves from the list when they find off-campus housing.
Georgetown expects to be able to provide housing to all students who remain on the on-campus housing waitlist through the academic year, said Karen Frank, vice president for facilities and student housing.
As of Tuesday, there were 610 rising juniors and seniors on the waitlist, including the 509 who applied for eligibility and did not receive it, as well as those who missed last month’s deadline to apply. At this time last year, approximately 720 students were waitlisted for housing. Frank said this drop is consistent with the usual fluctuation in the number of students on the waitlist.
“The list is shorter, but I don’t have any idea why,” Frank said. “Student behavior is unpredictable. We have had high years and low years.”
The current number of students on the waitlist will change as students either add or remove themselves from the list depending on whether or not they find off-campus housing.
In total, 2,309 rising juniors and seniors applied for housing eligibility – 1,800 of whom were granted eligibility – and 1,335 students who were eligible to apply for housing did not, according to Frank.
Frank said she is hopeful that the university will be able to provide housing assignments to students who remain on the waitlist through the school year. “In past years, we have gotten through the waitlist generally at the end of the spring semester. I am predicting the same thing this year,” she said.
Some students say they trust that they will get a housing assignment but are worried about the living arrangements they will receive. Nicole Bressaw (COL ’09) said she hopes that her four-person group will not be split up.
“I’m hoping that we stay together, but we are pretty low on the waitlist,” she said. “If we don’t, then we are going to have to try and find off-campus housing, which is such a hassle to do.”
Bressaw said she is fearful that off-campus housing will be difficult to find, because many students have already begun the search. “People start looking at the end of September, beginning of October,” she said. “It’s a huge crapshoot. It’s either going to work perfectly or not at all.”
Kyle Fitzpatrick (COL ’08) was number 600 on last year’s waitlist and waited until the end of July for his housing assignment. “I ended up getting a place in Nevils, but it took almost a year,” he said.
Upperclassmen selection of townhouses, apartments and Copley suites will resume tomorrow. It was postponed due to the crash of the server controlling the online selection process during last Saturday’s draft. Groups that have already made their housing selection will keep it, according to Frank.
The cause of the crash remains unknown. “We think [the server] is fixed. We are testing it, and we expect it to be resolved by Saturday,” Frank said.
Tomorrow, 262 groups of upperclassmen are expected to choose housing.
Frank said groups’ new selection times would be different than their time last week, and that the draft will begin at 9 a.m. She said her office would notify students of their new selection time via e-mail.
Students who select housing tomorrow will need to submit their occupancy agreements by 9 a.m. on Nov. 26, according to an e-mail from the Office of Housing Services.