Housing Lottery Begins as Frosh Pick Up Forms

It's that time of year again for freshmen: the housing lottery.

Freshmen officially began the house selection process yesterday by picking up their rooming group forms, which must be submitted by March 4 to the housing office.

The next step in the process will come on March 12 when freshmen receive their lottery numbers and house choice forms.

For many Yardlings, the beginning of the process brings nervous anticipation and relief.

"I'm glad I'm getting this over with," said Natasha E. Shapiro '90. "I've been trying not to worry about it, but it's hard. The subject comes up all thetime.

Freshmen said that the lottery system andprocess of choosing roommates has been the mainsubject of table conversation for weeks. "I heardsomeone say today that all people who spend morethan 25 percent of their time talking about itshould be shot," said Jack L. Robbins '90.

Because many students attempted to second-guessthe lottery system last year, College officialssaid they have chosen to emphasize the mechanicsof the lottery system in their presentations tofreshmen on the house selection process.

"I think we've done our best to get the wordout that scheming is not very helpful," saidThomas A. Dingman '67, assistant dean for theHouse System.

And many freshmen seem to have gotten themessage.

"The best idea I've heard so far is to not tryand beat the system and put down your honestchoices," said Sherwin K. Parikh '90.

Some members of the economics department havedecided to study how freshmen choose their roominggroups and houses to find out how individualpreferences combine to form group preferences.

In addition to their roommate choice forms, allfreshmen today received copies of the economicsdepartment survey which they are supposed to turnin along with their house choice forms.

Although the forms are not due for four days,many freshmen said they already know with whomthey will and will not live.

"We were lucky in that all the people in myroom this year decided early that we want to staytogether next year," said George L. Cushing '90.

"My current roommates and I knew from thebeginning that we wouldn't live together; we havedifferent friends, different schedules, differenttastes in music and clothes," said Susan L. Legro.

One freshman said things were "awkward" whenhis present rooming group decided to exclude oneof their roomates from their rooming group nextyear