Residential Life randomizes its lottery system for housing selection in order to ensure that residents who receive a high number once may fare better during the next year’s process.

Some students, however, are claiming that their current positions in the lottery were hardly changed from last year. Sophomore Jessica Stigile says that the difference between her and her friend’s numbers may not have changed since last year’s lottery.

“We were somewhere between 10 and 15 numbers apart last year and we were 11 apart this year,” Stigile said. “I remember thinking it was odd last year that our numbers were so close, so it really stuck out this year that our numbers were so close again.”

Residential Life (ResLife) uses a computer program to process the lottery numbers. All students receive a general lottery number that is used in the North Side Round (the Second Round) and the South 40 round (the Third).

According to the ResLife Web site, the random numbers given to students are a function of their housing level-or how long each student has lived in ResLife housing-and where the student’s number ranked the previous year within their housing level. The real value of the numbers varies depending on the round in which the student participates.

“In round one, the Residential College round, the numbers are random,” Cheryl Stephens, associate director of residential life, said. “In Round Two they are based on seniority-the longer you live with ResLife the better-and in Round Three [we use] the same lottery numbers as in round two, but the order we assign is reversed.”

But despite ResLife’s assertions that number assignments are arbitrary and that students who receive a bad number one year will receive a better one the next, Stigile said that many of her friends also found that their rank within their respective housing levels remained the same.

Even so, Stephens was not surprised to hear that there were many upset students.

“I’m sure there are several students out there who would tell you that they have had bad lottery numbers for more than one year,” Stephens said.

The method of assigning numbers has been modified over the years in response to students’ complaints and ideas. ResLife began reversing the numbers in Round Three in an effort to better suit the needs of the different classes.

“We know that most of our upperclassmen generally want to live on the North Side and our underclassmen want to live for the most part on the South 40,” Stephens said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t have both on each side, but the numbers are drastically smaller.”

Despite the potential for misgivings over the lottery system, there is no formal way to file a complaint with ResLife.

“We are willing to hear student complaints, but we feel that this is as fair a system as possible and will not make changes based solely on student complaints,” Stephens said.

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