First-Years Scheme, Pray on Eve of Housing Judgment

After a tense night of partying, praying, group dinners and mock sacrifices, the randomized housing assignments for the Class of 2005 were delivered in envelopes to students’ doorsteps this morning.

While many blocking groups spent last night finishing papers and cramming for midterms, some groups got together to endure collectively the excruciating wait for the decision that will influence the next three years of their college lives.

Most first-years said they merely hoped not to get “quadded,” but many went to great lengths to secure the housing assignments of their choice—although they knew the assignments were random.

Ritual Sacrifice

A blocking group consisting of eight creative, resourceful first-years has tried every trick in the book—and come up with a few of their own—to avoid being assigned to a House in the Quad.

“We all put fake concentrations [on the housing application] that were based on the river, like Sanskrit studies and linguistics,” said Ashley N. Fochtman ’05, one of the eight group members.

“Yeah, no one was allowed to put down astronomy because there’s an observatory by the Quad,” said Meagan M. Marks ’05.

They said they do not believe that the housing process is truly random.

“You can definitely tell the houses have different characters,” Fochtman said.

Adams House tops their list, according to Marks.

“It’s an artsy house, so some of us said we’re visual and environmental studies concentrators, and we’re going to do crayon drawings of Adams to help us get in,” she said.

They even have a contingency plan if they don’t get into Adams House.

“We’re going to build a hut attached to the side of Adams, like the Living Wage Campaign, and stage a sit-in at Adams. Maybe we’ll kidnap a blocking group in the house,” said Marks.

If they cannot get into Adams, a river House is still top priority for the blocking group.

All of their activities last night were geared toward securing the favor of the river House “gods.”

They said they would go “pre-gaming” at [Boston bar] Pravda until 2 a.m., at which point “we’ll have [a cab] deposit us by the river with a freshman boy named Lowell, our sacrificial lamb,” said Kim Z. Smith ’05.

“He’s our freshmeat,” said Marks. “We’re going to sacrifice him so we’ll get into Lowell House.”

They said they also hope to ensure a place on the river by tracking down students whose names match the names of the river Houses.

“We want to get all the boys named Adam, Eliot and Kurt to kiss us,” Marks said. “Hopefully we’ll get into Adams since there are more Adams in the class.”

Mather House is last on their list—after the Quad.

“Mather is the dungeon dorm, it’s like you’re going to prison,” Marks said.

The students said they are also wary of some House dining halls.

“We want to avoid Mather and Dunster food-poisoning,” Smith said.

The blockmates said if they are assigned to the Quad, they will face their fate with an entrepreneurial spirit.

“We’ll all get singles, and we’ll have so much room we’ll buy a tanning bed and rent it out,” Smith said.

“We will also open up a scooter industry to make the walk of shame that much shorter,” Marks said. “We will capitalize on being Quadded!”

Mile-High Blockmates

Meanwhile, one blocking group spent last night preparing to fly to the Dominican Republic for spring break on a flight that left at 4 a.m. this morning.

Out of the five-person blocking group of Timothy W. Bilodeau ’05, Christopher D. Golden ’05, Daniel S. Hamovic ’05, John R. Lidington ’05 and William G. Whelan ’05, only Hanovic will stay behind to collect the envelope.

“I’m not that anxious about it, because there’s nothing we can do anyway,” Lidington said. “We just have to wait and see.”

Members of the blocking group, composed of three high school “arch-rivals” and four Massachusetts residents, said they discovered that their shared sense of humor and hometown connections made them a natural combination.

“Dan is the guy that touches the statues in Annenberg to make them beep,” When said of his blockmate Hamovic. “He is that guy.”

While members of their blocking group were courted by three other groups, Golden said the restrictions on blocking group size—which was 16 until two years ago—made their decision easier.

“We’ve kind of known that we would block together since the beginning of the year,” Golden said.

While these first-years appear unfazed by the housing lottery process, they do have their preferences.

Golden praised the parties and people in Cabot, while Bilodeau said he liked the large rooms in Mather.

Whatever the envelope contains, the blockmates said they are more concerned with which House their other friends will call home come sophomore year.

“It matters more if we are close to our friends as opposed to the location of the House,” Golden said.

Flaming Boats, River Hopes

First-years in Canaday C planned to steer clear of the Quad by setting little cardboard boats on fire down the Charles River last night as they awaited their housing assignments.

The prefects for the entryway, Lorrayne S. Ward ’03, Peter P. Monteleone ’03 and Jordan D. Scopa ’04 sent an e-mail to the entryway with a poem to get the first-years excited about the housing lottery.

“After days of strife and nights spent sleepless, Your blocking forms having reached completeness, Your days in the yard are reaching their end, Your home at Harvard must change once again,” reads a selection from the poem.

The first-years and their prefects met at 10 p.m. and walked over to the banks of the Charles, where they set fire to the boats as a sacrifice to the “river gods.”

The tradition is two years old, but it was not so successful last year.

Scopa attributed the large number of the entryway’s residents who were lotteried into the Quad last year to some over-eager first-years jumping into the river.

The prefects said they remembered their own blocking stresses and felt the light-hearted sacrifice to the river gods will ease tension in the entryway.

Scopa said the prefects were prepared with lighter fluid should the snow and rain get in the way of their plans.

But the end result of the housing lottery was a bigger concern than the weather last night.

Most of the Canaday C residents greeted the prospect of Quad living with dread, worrying about long walks and isolation.

But Stephanie J. Dorvil ’05 said some of her extracurricular activities had taken her to the Quad—and it wasn’t so bad.

“As long as there are no rats or roaches, which is what I’ve heard about the river houses, I’ll be happy,” she said.

Dorvil, who said the walk to and from the Quad would keep her in shape, did not attend the boat-burning rituals last night—she has two midterms tomorrow.

Kacie A. Lally ’05, after conducting an informal survey among upperclass acquaintances, said she decided she hopes to end up in Kirkland or Quincy.

Evan Kaseguma '05 said he saw Mather’s environment as social and said he would like to live there.

Despite randomization, the first-years took stock in rumors of definite House personalities.

Some said they had heard that pre-meds live in Currier, football players in Pforzheimer and rowers in Cabot House.

Dorm Crew Buddies

One blocking group of five first-years was brought together early this semester by shared experiences doing Dorm Crew. “Five of us met during Fall Cleanup before the year even started,” said Michael L. Stewart ’05.

“Allison [J. Colbert ’05] was the first person I ever met at Harvard,” said Kristina J. Matic ’05.

The core group formed as they bonded in rubber gloves and continued to hang out once the year began.

“The five of us remained very close as we were being pummelled with people during Freshman Week,” Stewart said. Eventually, the group of friends grew to include about 15 people, he said.

They endured the rigors of life in the Yard with ritualistic Monday night trips to eat half-price appetizers at John Harvard’s, Matic said.

“The weird thing about it is that we’ve remained best friends even though we all live in different dorms,” Stewart said. The group spans Hollis, Holworthy, Pennypacker, Matthews and Canaday Halls.

In preparation for the big morning, the group organized a sleepover in Matthews.

As the fateful hour grew closer, the group was apprehensive about the news.

“I won’t be excited when we get Currier in the morning,” Stewart said.

“When we get Mather,” Matic corrected him.

Some members of the group long to return to Kirkland, their first taste of Harvard during Fall Cleanup, Stewart said.

But other Houses are equally attractive.

“I’ve heard that Adams and Quincy bring you roses [if you get into their Houses]” Stewart said.

He was skeptical about the randomization policy.

“If it were random, why would they ask you your concentration?” Stewart said.

But as no member of the group is named Adam, Eliot or Lowell, he doesn’t believe tradition—real or imagined—will affect his group.

The group hopes the night will prove memorable.

“This is the highlight of my week,” Matic said.

They have planned a special commemoration. “We’ll appreciate our last moments as innocent freshmen and then go eat breakfast in our House,” Stewart said.

All’s Well That Ends Well?

Arie J. Hasit ’05, who took out an advertisement in The Crimson asking for a blocking group, finally got his wish.

On March 6, Hasit took out an ad stating “I WANT YOU!” Though he received several responses, mostly from people with whom he had some connection, Hasit was still unsure about his blocking situation.

But Hasit’s efforts in trying to find a blocking group were not in vain.

Eric Trager ’05, a friend of Hasit’s who designed the advertisement, went a step further and provided Hasit with a blocking group—his own.

“He really wanted to help me find a blocking group, so he helped me take out the ad,” Hasit said. “But when he had room in his group, he helped me in the best way he could and took me into his group.”

—Emily M. Anderson, Orofisola Fasehun, Margaretta E. Homsey, Lauren M. Jiggetts and Maria S. Pedroza contributed to the reporting of this story.

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