Lottery blues

I am a rising sophomore who, on February 21, sat in J Street and anxiously waited for my number to be called. My fears steadily increased as one by one, all of the co-ed halls’ doubles filled. My number was to be called after 8:30 – but by 8 p.m., the people in charge already were handing out guaranteed waiting list sheets.

In short, I was royally screwed over by the housing lottery, and I have a sneaky suspicion a lot of other rising sophomores were, too.

The most unfortunate part is that the University could have avoided this problem and the deep discontent it now will face as a result of the housing shortage. Easy solutions would have been either to create an all-sophomore residence hall, or to have guaranteed sophomore slots in all upperclassmen residence halls. Or the University could be intelligent and do both.

When I went on my tour of GW, my guide insisted students are guaranteed housing through sophomore year. If this is the case, then why were juniors and seniors given the majority of rooms? Why did the University change Madison to an all-freshman hall when it appears it did not adequately increase the number of rooms available to upperclassmen?

While I completely understand that the University has promised to find me a room somewhere, I can’t even begin to imagine where that place might be.

The other issue that comes to mind is the idea of living off campus. While this is entirely feasible and arguably cheaper, benefits exist to living on campus – such as living with other GW students and being aware of on-campus events.

For now the situation as it stands is that I will not hear of my rooming assignment until early June. I can only hope for two things: 1.) I luck out with a decent room, and 2.) the University will learn from its egregious error and change the housing system for next year.-Meytal Kashifreshman