By Julia Mericle
News Assignment Editor
As the housing application deadlines approach, students across campus are choosing their roommates, selecting housing locations and trying to calculate their potential lottery numbers.
Applications for Townhouses, Garden Apartments and Shay Suites are due by Friday, Feb. 27 in Reilly Center room 204 by 4 p.m. Students who attended apartment information sessions received applications for apartments. Students interested in living in Shay suites can pick up an application in Reilly Center room 204.
All students living on campus next year must pay their $150 non-refundable room deposit by Friday, Feb. 27 to ensure a spot in the room selection process.
Students who wish to live in any other residence halls do not need to fill out a separate application. This includes any on-campus, upperclassmen rooms that are not in Shay Hall.
“The process isn’t too bad,” Ryan Horan, a sophomore journalism and mass communication major, said, “Its an easy application. I have no real complaints.”
Priority in the housing selection process is determined by individual student scores. The score is based on a random lottery number from which points are subtracted for academic year, grade point average and participation in extracurricular activities and service. Students must fill out an extracurricular form in order to have their points deducted. The lowest scores get first priority.
“Being a second-semester transfer, I find it difficult to find housing because the lottery is so early and relies so heavily on campus involvement for the score,” Kathryn McTyre, a sophomore marketing major, said.
All freshmen and sophomores are required to live in on-campus housing. Sophomores may apply for Garden Apartments, while juniors, seniors and graduate students have the choice to live in any apartment options.
In Phase One Townhouses, there are five six-person apartments and eight four-person apartments. Phases Two and Three Townhouses include 72 four-person apartments. In each Garden, there are eight six-person apartments.
According to Nichole Gonzalez, executive director for residential living and conduct, last year there were enough applications at apartment selection to fill all but two townhouses. However, the townhouses were filled over the summer.
Last year, the number of Gardens applications exceeded the number of Gardens.
Gonzalez said she believes this year all the apartments will fill up by apartment selection.
Apartment selection is Monday, Mar. 23 at 7 p.m. in the Dresser Auditorium of the John J. Murphy Professional Building. Regular room selection is Wednesday, Mar. 25 at 7 p.m. in the Dresser Auditorium.
With experience on the matter, Gonzalez offers her advice to students considering their housing situations. She encourages students to keep an open mind and have different options they are willing to try.
“Be honest with people and yourself about who you can live with and who you can’t,” Gonzalez said, “When you are a freshman, unless you picked your roommate, we picked it for you. Now you have the chance to pick, so do what is good for you, not what is convenient because you don’t want to be mean.”
