Separating the housing pools for rising juniors and seniors this year seemed to mitigate problems that occurred last year with junior housing, University Campus Housing Director Seth Weinshel said Sunday.

Earlier this semester, Weinshel said that the Community Living and Learning Center decided to change housing selection so that each class had its own pool of dorms to choose from due to complaints his office received from juniors last year when they shared a pool of dorms with seniors. The class-specific dorms are meant to give each grade fairer options for housing.

Housing selection for all rising fourth-year and third-year students interested in living on campus for the 2006-2007 academic year closed at 4 p.m. Sunday. Weinshel said that the process went as planned and there “were very few issues, very few complaints.” He said that the new system worked as expected, and he thinks giving juniors and seniors separate housing pools led to fewer problems this year.

“The juniors went and we didn’t hear many complaints. We’re not sure what tomorrow will bring, but everything seemed to go smoothly,” Weinshel said.

He said that after rising seniors finished housing selection Saturday, there were open rooms left in 1959 E Street that were offered to and filled by rising juniors Sunday. At the end of Sunday’s registration, he said there were rooms still available in City Hall, which cannot be offered to rising sophomores because the city requires that all freshmen and sophomores live within campus boundaries. Instead, those rooms will be used for upperclassmen on the waitlist, Weinshel said.

Weinshel added that he does not know the logistics of the waitlist yet but that CLLC has already gotten a few applications. The waitlist is for students who filled out intent-to-return forms but did not register for housing during their designated time because their desired room size was no longer available or because there were no more options.

Weinshel said that about 3,000 students now have housing assignments – including those who chose to “squat” in their rooms – and rising second-year students will complete housing selection Wednesday and Thursday.

“We’re very pleased with how it went so far,” he said. “We’re excited for sophomore housing to start, and we hope it goes as smoothly as the first two days have.”

– Katie Rooney