Administration Simplifies Room Draw for Apartments

The Housing Committee met Thursday to revise the room draw system for the student apartments, hoping to simplify and rationalize the complex system governing who can and cannot land a so-called Senior Apartment. As Director of Residential Life Fid Castro explained, the administration wanted to make the process fairer for students who are behind on credits, while preserving the apartments as a sort of “reward” for seniors. Although the committee considered more dramatic changes (and wants to leave them on the table for future consideration) it settled on a fairly modest simplification of the lotto process.

Many students feel that the room draw process is as arbitrary as drawing names from a hat.

In the past, students applied for apartments in groups of four, entering a weighted lotto in with each student was assigned a point value based on his or her number of credits. This system divided students by semester as well as year, making it nearly impossible to get an apartment if you were a semester behind (or even one class short of completing a semester) without having another member of your apartment balance you out by being a semester ahead.

Under the upcoming system, which the administration plans to announce soon, there will be no more arcane points totals and unforgiving margins of error. Students will simply be sophomores, juniors, or seniors, aligning the system with that used by the registrar’s office and making it rather more generous in the process. This system will allow students who are behind academically, even to the point where they will be December graduates the year after their proper graduation date to be counted as members of their entering class for the apartment lotto, benefiting students who took a semester off or otherwise ended up behind in credits.

The committee also considered a scheme in which each member of a group would be assigned an individual lotto number and the group could use the highest of them in consideration for an apartment but it was poorly received by the Deans and abandoned.

The new College Park apartments will be integrated with the revised lotto system.

Wyatt MacKenzie

Wyatt MacKenzie, like Venus, was formed spontaneously from sea foam and emerged carrying an IBM Selectric. He is physically incapable of producing anything but the most perfect reporting imaginable and has won seven Pulitzers for his work investigating CMC cafeterias. He hopes one day to report a story so hard that it stops ethnic conflict in the third world.

Ruined

This ruins any advantage kids had from being a semester ahead also. Now students who are a semester ahead expecting to get a great apartment might not even get one. Awesome.

To be fair…

Wah wah wah. Think about it. If you’re entering with a group of four, as a SENIOR, likely chance is that someone will have a decent enough number. Jeez!
Arielle Zuckerberg

This doesn’t “ruin any advantage kids had from being a semester ahead.” You still get to register for classes earlier.

Ruined

This ruins any advantage kids had from being a semester ahead also. Now students who are a semester ahead expecting to get a great apartment might not even get one. Awesome.

To be fair…

Wah wah wah. Think about it. If you’re entering with a group of four, as a SENIOR, likely chance is that someone will have a decent enough number. Jeez!
Arielle Zuckerberg

This doesn’t “ruin any advantage kids had from being a semester ahead.” You still get to register for classes earlier.

To be fair…

And is this for housing in general, or just for the Apts?
To be fair…

And is this for housing in general, or just for the Apts?
Consequences….

So let me think:

I don’t get a higher room draw number if I am ahead on credits. Why not just drop some of the classes I’m in right now?
Consequences….

So let me think:

I don’t get a higher room draw number if I am ahead on credits. Why not just drop some of the classes I’m in right now?
@Concequences

Housing is the only reason you take classes?
@Concequences

Housing is the only reason you take classes?
junior

it’s pretty unfair of the housing committee to change apartment draws so close to room draw. there are people who’ve worked hard and taken extra classes to be a semester up, and now they’re put in the same draw as people who may have slacked enough to drop classes and end up a semester behind, and even yet, no official announcement. priority in room draw is a reward for students who’ve put in extra time to overload and take classes over the summer, and to put it frankly, this blows.

To be fair…

I think they did it so as not to punish those who are only one credit behind, say to dropping one class, than to help out those who are slacking severely.

But I agree with Arielle. Housing is the only reason you try to get a semester ahead? You probably need to straighten out your priorities.

junior

it’s pretty unfair of the housing committee to change apartment draws so close to room draw. there are people who’ve worked hard and taken extra classes to be a semester up, and now they’re put in the same draw as people who may have slacked enough to drop classes and end up a semester behind, and even yet, no official announcement. priority in room draw is a reward for students who’ve put in extra time to overload and take classes over the summer, and to put it frankly, this blows.

To be fair…

I think they did it so as not to punish those who are only one credit behind, say to dropping one class, than to help out those who are slacking severely.

But I agree with Arielle. Housing is the only reason you try to get a semester ahead? You probably need to straighten out your priorities.

Another Junior

Ruined: I completely agree with you. I have been looking forward to having an apartment and have taken extra classes to make it possible. I think it is very unprofessional to all of a sudden change the rules; maybe a more democratic approach at a completely arbitrary change would have been nice.

That said, I’m not really shocked by Fid’s transgression. It would be interesting to explore if Fid was one of those students that the process was “unfair” to and would have liked to be rewarded as a senior with sub-par credit standing.

This amongst many other policies coming from his office indicate that he is becoming more Andyshackesque. Oh goody, not that again.
Another Junior

Ruined: I completely agree with you. I have been looking forward to having an apartment and have taken extra classes to make it possible. I think it is very unprofessional to all of a sudden change the rules; maybe a more democratic approach at a completely arbitrary change would have been nice.

That said, I’m not really shocked by Fid’s transgression. It would be interesting to explore if Fid was one of those students that the process was “unfair” to and would have liked to be rewarded as a senior with sub-par credit standing.

This amongst many other policies coming from his office indicate that he is becoming more Andyshackesque. Oh goody, not that again.
@another junior

Fid is definitely not becoming like ethan andyshack, if anything I would say he’s trying to be opposite of that.

I can also say that Fid was NOT one of those students. He was actually an RA his senior year…
@another junior

Fid is definitely not becoming like ethan andyshack, if anything I would say he’s trying to be opposite of that.

I can also say that Fid was NOT one of those students. He was actually an RA his senior year…
Drew

From the email it looks like just about everybody who would be a senior next year is classified as second semester juniors, and those who are a semester ahead are classified as seniors. If this is true it’s not unfair to those who worked hard. They essentially get first pick.
Drew

From the email it looks like just about everybody who would be a senior next year is classified as second semester juniors, and those who are a semester ahead are classified as seniors. If this is true it’s not unfair to those who worked hard. They essentially get first pick.
Andrew

Dear CMC,

Please stop screwing your students. Its absolutely offensive that they think they can charge $7,710 for you to share a room at college park. It would run you a total of around $3850 to sign a nine month lease between four people for the same exact room if you just went to college park directly.
Andrew

Dear CMC,

Please stop screwing your students. Its absolutely offensive that they think they can charge $7,710 for you to share a room at college park. It would run you a total of around $3850 to sign a nine month lease between four people for the same exact room if you just went to college park directly.
Foot out the door

As a current senior enjoying the benefits of working to get a semester ahead and now living with three of my best friends in our first choice apt, all I can say is: WOW. This new system as best as I can understand it does the opposite of what it was intended to do. According to the registrar’s office, people are either Fr, SO, JR, SR. meaning that those who are 4 credits ahead get no priority, whereas those who are 0.5 behind get lumped in with the class below them.

Unless I’m wrong, which is entirely possible, it seems as if CMC has gone about changing the process to make it allegedly “more fair” to those that are behind a credit. But what it has served to do is penalize those who are ahead a credit while failing to bring any added benefit to those who are behind.

This sounds vaguely reminiscent of the press release issued last year by Dean Hess in which he stated that students going abroad would now have to pay the fee to attend CMC, not their designated college’s fee. His rational: to make the system more fair to those who could not afford to pay for schools which cost more. Number of schools that cost more than CMC which host an abroad program: 2.

How about we call a spade a spade here and stop dressing up the administration’s frugality as equality.
Foot out the door

As a current senior enjoying the benefits of working to get a semester ahead and now living with three of my best friends in our first choice apt, all I can say is: WOW. This new system as best as I can understand it does the opposite of what it was intended to do. According to the registrar’s office, people are either Fr, SO, JR, SR. meaning that those who are 4 credits ahead get no priority, whereas those who are 0.5 behind get lumped in with the class below them.

Unless I’m wrong, which is entirely possible, it seems as if CMC has gone about changing the process to make it allegedly “more fair” to those that are behind a credit. But what it has served to do is penalize those who are ahead a credit while failing to bring any added benefit to those who are behind.

This sounds vaguely reminiscent of the press release issued last year by Dean Hess in which he stated that students going abroad would now have to pay the fee to attend CMC, not their designated college’s fee. His rational: to make the system more fair to those who could not afford to pay for schools which cost more. Number of schools that cost more than CMC which host an abroad program: 2.

How about we call a spade a spade here and stop dressing up the administration’s frugality as equality.
Curious

Anybody know the answers to these questions?

-Does College Park actually offer 9-month leases?
-Is CMC paying for utilities?
-Is CMC providing furniture?
-Does financial aid apply to students living off-campus?
Curious

Anybody know the answers to these questions?

-Does College Park actually offer 9-month leases?
-Is CMC paying for utilities?
-Is CMC providing furniture?
-Does financial aid apply to students living off-campus?
Answers

From what I know College Park does not offer nine month leases. The shortest lease is twelve months. CMC will be paying for utilities and providing furniture. The financial aid questions is a bit complicated. I believe that if your financial aid currently covers housing and you decide to go live off campus you will get reimbursed at the end of the semester.

Andrew

Ok, ill reassess the situation for a 12 month lease at College Park.

Individual cost for 4 people living in college park on a 2 bedroom “Pomona” floor plan; $5,240 per person, per year. This figure includes a fourth of the 500 deposit that college park requires.

The total cost of the CMC offered units at college park will be $15,400 per person, per year.

I know that CMC will be covering furniture and utilities but last time I checked the $10,160 difference between the INDIVIDUAL cost of a CMC leased apt and the open market cost will buy you an entire warehouse of Ikea furniture and all the natural gas and broadband you could ever consume.

If the email Jim Nauls sent out is accurate, if you want to find the 32 dumbest kids at CMC look no further than the CMC leased college park apartments.

Drew

My guess is that it’s inaccurate. The email also claims that studio apartments are $7,675 per semester. I’m living in one this semester and it’s half that. I think he meant $7710 per year, which is more reasonable considering that it’s furnished. Still not a great deal.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

Actually, it does offer 10 month leases.

Answers

From what I know College Park does not offer nine month leases. The shortest lease is twelve months. CMC will be paying for utilities and providing furniture. The financial aid questions is a bit complicated. I believe that if your financial aid currently covers housing and you decide to go live off campus you will get reimbursed at the end of the semester.

Andrew

Ok, ill reassess the situation for a 12 month lease at College Park.

Individual cost for 4 people living in college park on a 2 bedroom “Pomona” floor plan; $5,240 per person, per year. This figure includes a fourth of the 500 deposit that college park requires.

The total cost of the CMC offered units at college park will be $15,400 per person, per year.

I know that CMC will be covering furniture and utilities but last time I checked the $10,160 difference between the INDIVIDUAL cost of a CMC leased apt and the open market cost will buy you an entire warehouse of Ikea furniture and all the natural gas and broadband you could ever consume.

If the email Jim Nauls sent out is accurate, if you want to find the 32 dumbest kids at CMC look no further than the CMC leased college park apartments.

Drew

My guess is that it’s inaccurate. The email also claims that studio apartments are $7,675 per semester. I’m living in one this semester and it’s half that. I think he meant $7710 per year, which is more reasonable considering that it’s furnished. Still not a great deal.

http://claremontconservative.com Charles C. Johnson

Actually, it does offer 10 month leases.

Hmmm

Okay, I have a question. If you’re one credit behind, where does that put you for normal room draw? Are you still with your class? I’m totally confused.
Hmmm

Okay, I have a question. If you’re one credit behind, where does that put you for normal room draw? Are you still with your class? I’m totally confused.
someone

no one knows yet…
someone

no one knows yet…

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Administration Simplifies Room Draw for Apartments

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