The following email was forwarded to Bwog:

From: Residential Life & Housing <housing@barnard.edu>
Date: Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 11:58 AM
Subject: Important email re: your Plimpton room assignment
Dear [redacted]

We are writing to you today because you are a resident of ##A# Plimpton (a corner room) with difficult news to share so close to the start of the semester. As you may have heard, Barnard is experiencing a significant housing shortage for the upcoming academic year. We currently have over 80 students for whom we have no vacant spaces in our residence halls. The combination of a higher yield rate, fewer housing cancellations, and a significantly higher number of housing applications have all contributed to our shortage this year.

Since many of the students who we are unable to house come from outside of the tri-state area, we are trying to create additional residence hall space to house as many of these students as possible. One way in which the College will accomplish this is by changing the occupancy of your Plimpton room from a single to a double room. We understand that this change is unexpected and may be difficult. After a thorough review of all other options, the College has decided that this change in Plimpton is the best way to accomplish our goal of housing as many students for the Fall as possible.

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Suite Selection and General Selection may be over, but thanks to Summer Transfer and Fall Transfer, the Housing season at Columbia never really ends. You’ve still got questions, and we’ve still got answers. Email us at housing@bwog.com or just leave your housing-related queries in the comments!

Q: Bwog, I had a really bad lottery number in General Selection and there was nothing good left by the time I got to pick. Some of my friends I’m actually really lucky because of “summer transfer.” How do I do that?

A: All’s not lost if you have a terrible lottery number and ended up picking into some a room that wasn’t exactly your first choice. All you have to do is log into your housing application and click on the “Summer Transfer of Fall Assignment” step (which should be at the bottom of your “Academic Year 12–13″ application). Then, over the summer, Housing will try to place everyone who applied for summer transfer into a new room that fits their preferences.

The key to summer transfer is that Housing does the transfers in reverse-lottery number order, so people with high lottery numbers get transfered before people who have lower lottery numbers. Seniors are still placed before juniors and juniors before sophomores, but within each class, higher lottery numbers are better.

Unfortunately, Summer Transfer isn’t going to be of much help to sophomores in General Selection, the vast majority of whom couldn’t pick into housing and were placed on the Sophomore Waitlist. Summer Transfer only works if you already have housing for the Fall and want to change it; if you never got housing in the first place, you’re not eligible for it. You can still apply for Fall Transfer, but very few people—particularly underclassmen—will get Fall Transfer. You’d have much more success with a Room Swap, a one-on-one room trade between you and a willing partner.

On the other end of the spectrum, Summer Transfer doesn’t include the incredibly nice University Apartment Housing dorms. Last year, these incredible apartments were given away a little haphazardly; Housing announced in August that interested seniors should email directly. This year, the UAH dorms may be offered through the Summer Transfer process, but in regular lottery number order, meaning lower lottery numbers pick before higher ones. That said, it’s not clear whether UAH dorms will be offered to undergraduates at all; Housing will gauge demand and make a final announcement later this summer.

"Meh."

According to a very diligent tipster, General Selection appointment times have been posted on StarRez! Possible reactions you may choose to display are pictured at right.

Guide to your own face via Wikimedia Commons.

Hey Juniors! (And mixed groups.) You’ve spent the past two days watching the seniors snatch up all the good housing, and now it’s your turn to have a go. Don’t forget, this year is different—if that Ruggles suite is gone by your appointment time, you can still give Junior Regroup a go before dropping to General Selection. As always, Bwog will be hanging out in the John Jay Lounge all day and keeping you up to date on everyone’s choices. So come forth, sub-30-point groups. We’ve been waiting. And we have stickers.

Click here to view the spreadsheet with the count of remaining suites!
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Location: 548 W. 113^th , next to Symposium Restaurant (544 W. 113). This brownstone was made available as a housing option for the first time last year, and has been spectacularly successful.

• Nearby dorms: Across the street from Watt, down the street from McBain.
• Stores and restaurants: Near a Chase ATM, Deluxe, Milano Market, Campo, and Oren’s.  Half a block away is Nussbaum & Wu, and Community.  Not that you will need outside food sources when you have the huge kitchens available in Symposium.

Cost:

• Unknown!

Amenities:

• Bathrooms: Bathroom in each double.
• AC/Heating: No AC, but has heating.  The Super for the building is very quick and dependable if you have any heating/utilities issues.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Not only is there a kitchen in each double, but they are BIG kitchens.  Newer and bigger than Watt.
• Laundry: There is one washer and one dryer way down on the bottom floor.  Residents frequently take their laundry across the street to Watt.
• Computers/Printers: None.  Residents use McBain for printing services.
• Gym: None.  But you have enough room for your own treadmill with these spacious doubles..
• Intra-transportation: Only stairs!  That can be a bit daunting if you land either of the 4th floor doubles.  Also, if you need to go open the door for someone (because only building residents have swipe access) then you must walk all the way down and all the way back up.
• Hardwood/Carpet: Hardwood flooring in the rooms, tile in the Kitchen/Bathroom.
• Closets: Real closets in all the rooms!

Room variety:

• Symposium is all doubles, besides the RA’s room on the first floor.  Two doubles per floor on floors 2-4, one double in the basement (the biggest).
• The doubles average right about 300 sqft.  Unfortunately, there are no specific numbers or floor plans available from housing.

Numbers:

• We talked to one resident who claimed that he picked into the second to last double in Symposium, and he had #750 as a rising junior.  So you need to have a pretty good number to have a chance at NYC Brownstone life.

Bwog recommendation:

• Rising Juniors who want doubles should plan on Watt, but if you hit it right with the housing lottery, you should heavily consider Symposium. (more…)

Location: 605-615 W. 115^th Street.

• Nearby dorms: Furnald, Woodbridge
• Stores and restaurants: UPS Store (yay!), the best Halal cart, Lerner, Morton Williams, M2M, Uni Cafe

Cost:

• $6,718 (same as Wien, McBain, Broadway)

Amenities:

• Bathrooms: Floor bathrooms. Relatively small and gross.
• AC/Heating: Air conditioning and heat.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Every floor has a new-ish lounge with a kitchen, furniture, and flatscreen.
• Laundry: Huge industrial laundry room in the basement.
• Computers/Printers: Computer lab on the first floor with one printer.
• Gym: None.
• Intra-transportation: Three amazingly quick elevators.
• Hardwood/Carpet: Carpeting, but a few rooms have vinyl flooring.
• Wi-Fi: Yes
• Practice rooms with pianos in the basement.

Room variety:

• Singles: Tons and tons of singles that are around 107 sq. ft.  The 22 and 20 line of singles are about 120 sq. ft. Almost entirely singles on the 10th through 16th floors.
• Doubles: The 2nd through 9th floors have doubles available on either wing.  They are pretty cramped at around 175 sq. ft.  The 30/28 line of doubles run about 200 sq. ft.
• The 05/07 line has walk-through doubles on every floor, but they’re awkwardly shaped, and cumulatively about 210 sq. ft.  Also, RIGHT behind the elevator shaft.

Numbers:

• Doubles: Are available even to unlucky sophomores.  Same for the walkthroughs ~10/3000
• Singles: Cut-off will likely land somewhere in the last bunch of rising Juniors.  ~20/2800

Bwog recommendation:

• Many residents enjoy the privacy Schapiro offers.
• If you need to preserve personal space with a single, Schapiro is a great option for rising Juniors, comparable to Broadway.  But don’t come here expecting the open-door friendliness of John Jay single living.  Schapiro residents tend to be much more distant.
• For rising sophomores, Schapiro is a decent alternative to McBain or Wien in the search for doubles, but you can find much bigger rooms and a more sophomore-friendly social atmosphere in McBain.

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As 2012 Suite Selection fast approaches, your housing questions are bound to multiply to the nth degree, like some sort of math thing we don’t learn about in our humanities seminars. Send ‘em to us at housing@bwog.com, and we’ll do our darndest to get you some answers in time for the big day(s).

Q: I’m a senior in a group with five other seniors. We all want singles, but our lottery number is too terrible to get an EC townhouse. Will Senior Regroup help us at all, or will we have to drop down to General in order to avoid doubling up? I can’t seem to find any description of Senior Regroup on the housing website…

A: We’ll address this in a few parts: 1. The difference between Senior Regroup and dropping to General Selection, 2. What your options for singles would be if you chose to participate in Senior Regroup, and 3. What happens if you drop to General Selection.

1. To Regroup, Or Not To Regroup: At the end of Suite Selection for 30-point groups, groups that haven’t chosen a suite will be given the option to dissolve and form new groups with other 30-pointers. This option is only open to CC and SEAS students; Barnard students in suite groups are not eligible for regroup. (If you don’t choose to take that option, you’ll all drop immediately to General Selection with your original lottery numbers and priority numbers—note that priority number for mixed-point groups dropping to General Selection is determined by the option your group leader selected originally.) For those participating in regroup, the new groups are then randomly assigned new numbers that designate the order in which they’ll pick from the remaining suites. If your new groups still fails to select a suite, you’ll all fall to General Selection with your original lottery and priority number.

2. Where You Stand After Regrouping: Assuming you decide to regroup, it’s really a free-for-all. That means any, some, or all CC/SEAS members of your original suite group may choose to regroup with other seniors also participating in Regroup. So from here, you can form groups of any size, depending on which suites are left. If you take a look at last year’s cutoff history, you’ll see that your options of getting an all-singles suite are very slim. Really, all that will likely be open in the way of “singles” are medium or low-demand Woodbridge suites, and walk-through doubles in River and Schapiro. Which brings us to General Selection…

Join us there, after the jump.

Location: 508 W. 114th St.

• Nearby dorms: John Jay, LLC, Carman. Same block as a bunch of frat/sorority houses brownstones and Broadway Residence Hall.
• Stores and restaurants: Nearly everything, especially on Amsterdam. Strokos is basically next door, and you’re just a short walk from HamDel, Artopolis, and Columbia Cottage. Stroll an avenue to the west and you’ve got Broadway at your disposal.

Cost:

• $8,324 (same as EC, Hogan, Watt, Woodbridge)

Amenities:

• Bathrooms: Two full baths in 6- and 8-person suites, one in the 4-person suites.
• AC/Heating: No AC. You can’t control the heating, so it tends to be hotter than needed in the spring. Steam heating can be a little noisy too.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Each suite comes equipped with a large kitchen, a full-size refrigerator, oven, stove, and microwave. One drawback of the kitchen is its general lack of counter space. The lounge isn’t huge, but it’s comfortable enough for a group to hang out. And beer pong!
• Laundry: 5 washers and 5 dryers in the basement; regularly fills at peak hours. It’s also only accessible by elevator, so even the lower floors have to wait.
• Computers/Printers: One printer in the lobby.
• Gym: No gym.
• Intra-transportation:One elevator that runs reasonably fast, and a narrow staircase.
• Hardwood/Carpet: Hardwood.

Room variety:

• On each floor:
  • 1 4-person all-single suite
  • 1 6-person 3 double/2 single suite
  • 2 8-person suites (NB: first floor only has one)
• 8-person suites are either 3 double/2 single (12 suites) or 2 double/4 single (2 suites)
• Singles really depend on how awkward the suite layout is. They can be as small as 85 sq. ft. (in 8-persons) or as large as 170 sq. ft. (4-persons)
• Doubles range from bad (175 sq. ft.) to okay (200 sq. ft.)

Numbers:

• 4-persons go to all-senior groups who couldn’t get townhouses (or want something closer). Competitive with Hogan, but the singles in Ruggles are larger.
• 6-person groups unable to get EC may drop down to General before looking at these Ruggles suites due to the small size of the two doubles. Expect these to go to junior groups. In the past the occasional sophomore group has landed themselves a 6-person, but expect junior regroup to fix that.
• 8-persons generally go to junior groups, with the 4-single ones going first. They’re a hot commodity; last year the 8-persons were gone halfway through junior suite selection.

Bwog recommendation:

• Go with Ruggles 4-persons if you want larger rooms, but take Hogan if you want a better lounge.
• 6-person senior groups will probably be happier dropping into General rather than risk ending up in a 175 sq. ft. double.
• The floorplans of individual suites (even on the same line) vary a lot, so choose carefully!

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With housing season in full swing, we present to you once again Bwog’s very own dorm reviews. This first one is for you, freshman!

Location: 562 W. 113^th

• Nearby dorms: McBain is a member of The Block. It shares 113th with Watt, Symposium, and Nussbaum. Hogan and Broadway are one block north.
• Stores and restaurants: Right above a Chase ATM, Deluxe, Milano Market, Campo Il Cibreo, and Oren’s. Oh, and the infamous Cardomat. Across the street is Nussbaum & Wu, Community, and Bon French Cleaners.  It’s hard to beat walking downstairs to Milano when it’s cold and rainy.  This is as close to John Jay as it gets for edible convenience.

Cost:

• $6,718, making it one of the cheapest non-freshperson dorms (tied with Wien, Schapiro, and Broadway).

Amenities:

• Bathrooms: Each floor has one male and one female hall bathroom.  They vary floor to floor in size and location.  Generally, the lower floors have worse bathrooms.
• AC/Heating: McBain does not have AC, but it has heating. Which you may or may not be able to control, depending on how rusted over your radiator is. Not that you will need the heat, if you are in the shaft.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Every floor has a kitchen/lounge combo equipped with a stove, microwave, full sink, flat screen TV with cable, table, and Columbia’s typical grey plush lounge chairs. The size and quality of the kitchen appliances varies by floor, but the second floor definitely has the most spacious lounge.
• Laundry: The 2nd through 5th floors have two washers and two dryers each. Sometimes it can be a pain to use the laundry room because the lack of washers and dryers on the higher floors yields a high people/washers ratio.
• Computers/Printers: There is a sizable computer lab on the first floor equipped with one NINJA printer. There can be lines right before class times, and the damn thing is broken half the time. There are rumors that CUIT is installing a second printer in McBain.
• Gym: McBain has a few treadmills and a few elliptical machines on the first floor. It just might be enough for you to work off that daily Milano chick parm, but we make no promises.
• Intra-transportation: Two elevators and a central stairwell.  The elevators are pretty dependable. The stairwell is pretty narrow.
• Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi and ethernet.
• Hardwood/Carpet: Some rooms have carpet and some have wood-imitation linoleum.  There doesn’t seem to be a consistent pattern that would explain the disparity, and rooms are slowly being renovated.

Read more after the jump.

We’ll answer your esoteric housing questions. Send them to housing@bwog.com or leave ‘em in the comments.

Q:  The Housing website says, “If your group does not select a suite in Suite Selection, your group may opt to stay together and select rooms in General Selection with the same appointment time, or your group may opt to break apart and select rooms in General Selection with appointment times based on your individual point values and lottery number.”

I was under the impression that when you drop from Suite to General Selection, everyone has the same lottery number. Which made me confused about the above statement– wouldn’t we have the same appointment time anyway because we would automatically have the same number? How do we have “individual” point values?

A: When your group leader sets up the group registration in the portal online, he or she will have to choose whether the group will stay together or break up, should you all drop to General Selection.

If the leader chooses the stay together option, you’ll all have the same lottery number AND point value (whatever the average of everyone in the group was) when you enter General Selection.

“This only affects mixed point groups.  Group Members all keep the same Lottery Number when they drop,” says Joyce Jackson, Executive Director of Housing. In other words, if you’re all 30-point rising seniors, and you split into individual General Selection from Suite Selection, you’ll all choose at the same time anyway.

But if you’re in a mixed-value group, your leader can choose the option to break up for General Selection, so each group member would retain the same lottery number, but choose at different times according to original point value.

Still a little unclear? We break it down with just a hint of jargon after the jump.

Q: What happens when someone in your suite graduates early/goes abroad (i.e. you go into an EC suite with someone who graduates in the fall) and you have an open bed in a double in the spring? Is housing likely to stick a random in with you, or is it likely for you to get a dingle for the rest of the year?

What has been the historical trend for kids based on word of mouth? Do you guys know anyone who has been in this situation and how the situation panned out?

A: We have some good news, and some bad news. The good is that you have the option to request a specific student to fill the space (another friend returning from a Fall semester abroad, for example), and your request will be prioritized. The bad is that Housing will likely fill the space even if you don’t request someone, which means you could get stuck with a random roommate.

“They can definitely tell us that they want a specific student who is returning to fill the space,” says Joyce Jackson, Executive Director of Housing. There’s no set order in which abandoned spots are filled, adds Jackson—that is, Housing doesn’t first fill abandoned rooms of a certain type or in a certain dorm. In layman’s terms, an opening in a Ruggles double is just as likely to be filled as an abandoned Broadway single.

In terms of word of mouth, Bwog can attest to having seen several possible outcomes. In one, a suite of five lost two suitemates to early graduation, and the spots were never filled. In another, a student who’d been abroad in the Fall came back and filled the spot of a suitemate leaving for a Spring semester abroad. In the third, three visiting students (in exchange programs) were placed by Housing to fill spots in a suite that lost three students to study abroad programs for the Spring, because the remaining suitemates didn’t request anyone specific to fill the spots.

Clearly, it’s not an exact science. Your best bet is to find a replacement for the student leaving, and send your request to Housing as early as possible.

We’ve slowly been gearing up for this coming housing season by covering the more colorful aspects of the housing process. Alas, the time draws nigh when you will be forced to finally make your housing choice official. Registration begins on February 29th and closes March 8th. Below, we’ve distilled a cursory overview of the entire housing process. Continue to ask questions in the comments, and feel free to share any nuggets of wisdom, upperclassmen.

1. Registration (Feb. 29th) Everyone registers. You can either do Suite Selection with 1 to 7 other people or go straight to General Selection. If you opt for Suite Selection, you get to participate in General Selection with the same lottery number if you decide not to make a room choice during Suite Selection or if there is no suite available for your group size. Each group must have a person picked as the “coordinator” to act as a point person.
2. Numbers (Mar. 21st): Lottery and priority numbers are assigned. Each group (Suite) or person (General) is assigned a priority number and a lottery number. Priority: 10 = rising sophomore, 20 = rising junior, 30 = rising senior (based on the semester you started at Columbia, not on your current standing). For a group, the group priority is the average of all the group members’ priorities (i.e. a group of 2 sophomores and 2 juniors would have a priority number of 15). Lottery numbers are assigned to each group in Suite Selection and each individual in General Selection at random from 1-3000. They are independent of priority numbers.
3. Appointment Times (Mar. 26th): Your Suite Selection appointments times are then assigned first by priority number then by lottery number. So, ignoring mixed class groups, all seniors pick before all juniors, who pick before all sophomores. After you get your appointment times, you’re locked in and have to wait until the actual Suite Selection process. Read Bwog every day during Suite Selection for our updates about the remaining suites available.
4. Regrouping (Apr. 2-10): At the end of their respective class-based priority appointment times (end of all 30-point groups, and then end of all 20-point groups), seniors and juniors may regroup with other class members to form new configurations with new randomly-assigned lottery numbers valid only for the regroup process. If a group still fails to select a suite, they then fall to General Selection with their original priority and lottery number. At the end of the 10-point priority appointment times, 10-point groups may split into group of two to pick into corridor doubles. Otherwise, they also drop to General Selection.
5. General Selection (Apr. 18-30): After the hullabaloo of Suite Selection, General Selection appointment times are posted. General Selection is done online, not in person. How appropriate.
6. The Dregs (May 1st): After selection is over, some sophomores will be left without a room. If  you did not get assigned a room, you go on a wait list and get whatever is left over after Housing makes final assignments. If you do not like your room selection, you may apply for summer transfer. The people who apply for summer transfer get to pick again in reverse-Lottery number order.