This year’s room selection process has undergone some major changes. Instead of being a one-day process, it is now taking place over the course of an entire week, from Monday, April 20 to Friday, April 25.
Dominic Petruzzeli, director of Residence Life, said he feels a week-long room selection is more beneficial to everyone in the long run.

“I feel good about the change,” he said. “If we hold room selection during the week, then all the other offices are open and therefore more resources will be available. More students are present in the process every year and it can be cumbersome. “One day is simply not enough,” he added.

On Monday, students approved for single rooms picked one of the six remaining upperclassman residence halls, including O’Connor, Century, the townhouses, Henley Road Residence, Seton Complex, and Coolidge Plaza. Yesterday, students approved for doubles picked rooms and today students select triple rooms. Thursday and Friday involves room selection for commuters, Manhattan campus students, and graduate students.

In addition to expanding room selection to a week, the points system was also revamped. It now takes a student’s class status into more consideration, along with GPA and judicial history.

Many students, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the room selection process.

A common complaint among students was a lack of organization. Students were given appointment times to select a room for next semester, but many of them said as lines began to grow for the townhouses, students who had later appointment times and wanted to live in a residence hall other than the townhouses were allowed to select rooms early.

Junior Ashley Falzone said she was frustrated with the long lines and delayed appointments.

“My appointment time was 10:00 but I didn’t actually get to choose a room until 11,” she said. “I prefer room selection day [from last year] because many people had classes today and throughout the week while the one day was on the weekend when everyone could come.”

Sophomore Tara Williams also said she was not a fan of room selection week.

“Last year, everything was on Saturday and I think that worked out great,” she said. “I think I was in line for a maximum of 20 minutes.”

Christine Zazzera, a freshman, called yesterday’s selection process “ridiculous” and said she was considering not living on campus again after what she experienced.
“I was on time for my appointment but people who came later got to go ahead of me,” she said. “I think there are so many different ways to do the room registration process. I think it’s moments like this that cause people to transfer.”

Petruzzeli said further changes could be made to room selection in the future.
“One improvement that we could make would be taking the whole system online,” he said. “This is one of the only stand-in-line processes that the school has. [Under this new system], students would be able to register online and even pick their roommates online.

“I think this would make picking rooms more efficient,” he said.

Students seemed to agree that demand for the living in the townhouses is very high.

“I think that the townhouses are in such high demand because of their visitation policy,” said Falzone. “They trust the students to be responsible enough to follow the rules and I think that’s why so many students wanted a room in the townhouses. If they reviewed their visitation policy then maybe this process wouldn’t have been so difficult for so many students.”

Petruzzeli said the current visitation policy for the Residence Village is currently under evaluation.

“We’re working on a change in the visitation policy, and the policy is in review,” he said. “We want to implement the same policy for every property.”