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.

And the Living is Easy

UPDATE: The University Apartments will NOT be part of the standard summer transfer process. Summer transfer will still be available for the buildings in the housing lottery, and the apartments will only be populated in the event that there is overflow. You won’t be able to pick into them; Housing will elect how to place people into them if they are needed. Sorta like last year.

Location: 514 West 114th
Nearby dorms: Ruggles is right next door. Broadway is down the block and River is across Broadway. Watt, McBain, and Nussbaum are also just around the corner.
Stores and restaurants: Strokos is down the block and Artopolis is next door from there along Amsterdam.

Cost: $8, 210, high price, but less than many other Apartments.

Amenities:
• Bathrooms: At least one in each apartment.
• AC/Heating: Heating, no AC, but a unit can be installed in the rooms easily.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Each apartment has its own kitchen and it is enormous. Two countertop spaces span the walls. Many of the apartments have dishwashers.
• Laundry: The laundry facilities are located in the basement. They take coins and the fare is standard, $1.25.
• Computers/Printers: No printer in the lobby, but you are a hop, skip and away from Butler.
• Gym: There’s no gym.
• Intra-transportation: One elevator and a stairwell. The elevator is relatively slow.
• Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi and ethernet.
• Hardwood/Carpet: All floors are hardwood.
• Facilities: Because UAH houses non-Columbia residents, it has its own maintenance crew that gets stuff done fast. They clean the bathrooms once a week.  (more…)