You said this would be fun

But what does my number mean? Once the school-wide distribution of lottery numbers was released yesterday, the answer to this became much clearer, sorta. Below, Bwog has broken down the numbers a bit to show how Housing 2011 differs from yesteryear. In response to your many queries and quandries, we offer some analysis of how this could impact selection.

With the help of the housing “calculator” by Blake Arnold, SEAS ’11, posted yesterday, and his version from last year, we’ve created the following table to break down how many groups there are of a certain size compared to 2010 group sizes.

Overall Breakdown of Groups

Group Size Number of Groups (2011) Number of Groups (2010) Difference
1 883 880 +3
2 312 278 +34
3 16 18 -2
4 101 109 -8
5 77 85 -8
6 86 64 +22
7 26 39 -13
8 46 39 +7

The takeaway here is obvious: this year saw a dramatic increase in 2- and 6-person groups. Things get even more interesting once we break these down by point value.

6-person Groups

Point Value Number of Groups (2011) Number of Groups (2010) Difference
30 36 47 -11
20-29 15 5 +10
10-19 35 12 +23

The rise in 6-person groups could be attributed to sophomores (or groups with sophomores in them). These groups are likely gunning for Ruggles 6-person suites and were probably encouraged by last year’s absurd cutoff of 10/1763. However, this cutoff was probably an anomaly, especially if you consult the 2009 cutoff of 30/2781. 5-person Ruggles suites were converted to 6-person suites last year, to the chagrin of many 5-person junior/senior groups that had already formed and pleasant surprise of 6-person sophomore groups.

The surge in sophomore 6’s can also help explain the drop in 7-person groups. There are 21 7-person sophomore groups. Last year, there were 37. A similar rise in junior 6-person groups can probably be explained with similar reasoning: they think the Ruggles 6-person is easier than it actually is.

Seniors seem to have it pretty good this year though. With 36 all-senior 6-person groups and 28 6-person EC townhouses eligible for Suite Selection (see note below), even groups with worse lottery numbers have a decent shot at that coveted all-single townhouse (22 available). So this leaves the question… where did all the seniors go?

    2-person Groups

    Point Value Number of Groups (2011) Number of Groups (2010) Difference
    30 119 79 +40
    20-29 90 94 -4
    10-19 103 105 –

    The seniors went here, absurdly increasing the number of 30-point 2-person groups. This will probably make Woodbridge more competitive than usual (sigh), and this may well run over into Watt (sigh).

      It’s difficult to pinpoint where all these seniors are coming from. A likely scenario is that seniors are forming pairs instead of 6- or 5-person groups (47 vs 54 last year). Since, you know, people don’t talk to each other anymore and stuff. If we assume all these former 6- and 5-person groups formed 2-person groups, we have well over 40 new 2-person groups.

      Wrap-Up

      So what does this all mean? Well, we don’t know for sure, and we won’t truly know until Suite Selection actually happens (John Jay Lounge, next Tuesday! Won’t you join us?). Groups with very good lottery numbers will still drop into General, where things always tend to be unpredictable.

      Also remember that certain rooms are ineligible for Room Selection. The Space Held Out of Lottery is reserved for Special Interest Housing, RAs, and other students with special circumstances. The exact rooms and suites often go through changes, so check that page often.

      We don’t claim to know everything Housing, and all we did here was present the hard numbers and offer up some opinions on what we think might happen. We encourage everyone to play the numbers game themselves, and help each other out in the comments! Love thy peers, especially if you have a number less than 1000.