First-Years Meet Housing Fate

With sparkling apple cider, elephants, rabbits and colorful posters, cheering upperclass students welcomed hundreds of first-years to their future Houses at Annenberg Hall yesterday afternoon.

As they filed into Annenberg, first-years pulled on T-shirts advertising their future places of residence.

Many upperclass students, who chose to return to Annenberg for lunch yesterday, ran through the dining hall with House names painted on their bare chests while chanting slogans and mock-bashing other Houses.

One Eliot House resident dressed up in an elephant costume and a Leverett House resident dressed up as a rabbit.

Currier House members proudly displayed an Australian Shephard dog in a Currier t-shirt.

First-years who were assigned to Adams House were conspicuously absent during the Annenberg festivities—they were attending a special lunch at the Adams dining hall, where women received roses and the men were given cigars.

As first-years alternately rejoiced and bemoaned their fates, the news they received yesterday demonstrated once again that the College’s randomized House assignment policy does not seem to respond to even the wildest ploys.

The Fated Envelope

In the hours before she learned of her housing assignment, Meagan M. Marks ’05 went looking for boys named Adam, Lowell or Eliot to kiss her, in the hopes that it would increase her chances of getting assigned to a river house.

Marks’ blockmates had even put down fake concentrations on their housing application forms, hoping that “artsy” concentrations would lead to a future in Adams House.

But at 8 a.m. yesterday morning, her hopes were dashed.

“Maybe we didn’t perform our rituals well enough,” said Marks, who will be calling Dunster home for the next three years.

But she said “anything was better than the Quad” and that she shared common interests with Dunster House.

“I used to go out with goat-herders before. How cool is it that Dunster had a goat roast!” she said.

Members of blocking groups in Canaday’s C-entryway had mixed results. The night before the assignments were delivered to their doorsteps, they sailed cardboard boats on the Charles River before setting them on fire.

Nadim N. Vasanji ’05 and Michael B. Schnall-Levin ’05 were part of a group that sailed “S.S. Adams.” They were assigned to Adams House yesterday.

But fellow Canaday C resident Kacie A. Lally ’05 wasn’t as lucky. Lally and her blockmates had wanted to be assigned to Kirkland or Quincy, but were assigned to Currier House.

“None of my blockmates could make it to the rituals, so I would blame that,” she joked.

She added that her blockmates were unsuccessful in attempts to convince her that “every cloud had a silver lining.”

“I had wanted anything but the Quad,” Lally said.

But one person in a blocking group of five members—four of whom flew to the Dominican Republic yesterday for spring break—said he was not too disappointed about being assigned to Cabot House.

Daniel S. Haimovic ’05, who stayed behind because of tennis commitments, said he was sure his blockmates would be pleased with the assignments.

“I’m happy with it because I know I have a lot of friends there,” he said.

Haimovic’s blockmate Christopher D. Golden ’05 had said earlier that he liked the parties and people in Cabot.

Arie J. Hasit ’05, who had placed an advertisement in The Harvard Crimson on March 6 stating “I WANT YOU!” asking for blockmates, was assigned to Kirkland House.

Hasit, who had found a blocking group in the end—the group of a friend who helped him design the advertisement—said he was relieved not to have been assigned to Currier or Mather House.

While he said he wanted to be assigned to Leverett or Winthrop house, he said he liked Kirkland’s dining hall and libraries.

A group of five first-years who had met each other during Fall Cleanup and then developed their friendship while working Dorm Crew was assigned to Dunster House.

Kristina J. Matic ’05 said her group’s first words on opening the envelope were, “Where is Dunster?”

Matic said she was “neutral” about Dunster and that she had spent the night before she received the envelope with her blocking group “pretending to do work” and munching on take-out from the Hong Kong restaurant.

—Staff writer Ravi P. Agrawal can be reached at agrawal@fas.harvard.edu