It’s that time of year again…

March 15, 2020, we were all being ushered off of campus, sent home to face the most unpredictable end to the Spring term imaginable. Despite the global meltdown, however, Columbia housing still happened “like normal,” in beautiful, blissful ignorance. We really went through the entire process, more or less thinking hey, those rooms will probably still be ours come fall, right? What fools we all were… 

Now on March 15, 2021, Columbia housing selection begins its second year of an all-online format, though I’ll dare say our chances to actually see daylight in whatever wonderful or, well, McBain rooms we end up in are far greater than last year’s. Columbia housing will proceed from today to April 15, from the luckiest rising seniors to the truly sorriest of rising sophomores, with selection happening from about 9 am to about 4:30 pm on weekdays. Barnard’s housing process starts on March 23 and will also dutifully be covered, so if you attend one of those two schools, Bwog will keep you up to date with all the epic highs and lows of the selection process through our housing coverage and/or our Twitter thread. 

Today was the first day of housing selection, which means only the rising seniors with the choicest numbers went, picking basically whatever they wanted. This means the rest of us have time to read back through Bwog’s housing reviews to fantasize and/or panic about our dorms of first and last choice, double-check our selection time, and check on the live ticker in relative… peace? Can anything about housing be called peaceful?

What’s gone:

  • The handful of studio singles in Watt and the brownstones
  • The four-person suites in EC that don’t include the company of a (surely lovely) RA

What’s scarce:

  • 2 four-person suites in EC (with RAs)
  • That singular three-person suite in EC (also with RAs!)

What’s still remaining:

  • Everything else is pretty open for rising seniors choosing tomorrow. Y’all are the lucky ones: enjoy a peaceful housing selection!
  • The numbers:
    • Literally all of Claremont
    • Two two-person, 11 four-person, and nine five-person suites in Hogan
    • 57 singles in River
    • Literally all of Ruggles
    • 19 two-person one-bedrooms in Watt
    • 70 two-person one-bedrooms in Woodbridge

Looking ahead: All in all, it was a pretty standard first day. It won’t be until the end of this week, after the first half of the rising senior groups choose, that housing options will start to shrink. It remains to be seen if any of the trend-bucking choices rising seniors made last year, like taking all the Nuss singles, will be repeated this year. For the rising juniors’ sakes, let’s hope they aren’t…

Image of that EC view these seniors will be enjoying via Bwog Archives