Playing MegaHouses

Over in Matthews this spring, five roommates polled the freshmen class to find out which undergraduate house was the most popular.

In Weld a less ambitious rooming group opted only to call those freshmen who would pick before them in the housing lottery to find out which Houses would have openings for them.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Pennypacker, two other freshmen designed a computer program to determine what their chances were of being assigned to their first choice house.

Throughout the Yard, the annual rite of the freshman housing lottery prompted statistical hysteria as the College experimented with its new system, under which Yardlings were informed of their lottery number before they were asked to choose their future residence.

And after the smoke cleared, not enough freshmen had listed Quincy House, traditionally one the most popular houses and last year's first filled, as one of their three choices, a phenomenon usually experienced only by houses in the distant Radcliffe Quad. The housing office had to assign some students to live in Quincy--just one of a host of unanticipated results of this year's new housing lottery system.

Originally adopted to erase some of the mystery and tension which traditionally surrounded the housing lottery, the new system informed freshmen of what number they would have before they had to choose which three houses were their favorites.

The new system provided the freshmen with more knowledge about what their chances would be at getting into their first choice house. With this additional information, the calculations became more intricate and more complicated, particularly for those who received numbers in the middle or at the bottom.

When the hysteria had calmed and all the freshmen knew which house they would call home for the next three years, the College elected to give the new system another try. The new system is not necessarily permanent, however, and the Committee on House Life will review it again next year.

But the pioneer lottery has received less than an outpouring of praise. Two-thirds of the veteran proctors called the revisions overall "harmful" in a University poll, conducted after the lottery had been completed. One proctor added on the poll, "If this is an attempt to reduce anxiety level, I would say that it's not working. If it's a distraction from academics and the weather, it's working."

Assistant Dean of the College Thomas A. Dingman '67, who is in charge of housing, said the revisions gave some students the feeling "they had some greater sense of control over their destiny" and led freshmen to consider houses that they would not have under the old system. However, Dingman added, "It [the new system] upped the level of anxiety because people were trying to second-guess."

Many freshmen as well found the advantages that the system accrued questionable. "First we used reverse psychology and then we used double reverse psychology," said John M. Salera '89 of his group's attempts to determine which house they had the best chance of getting into. Ian R. Pollit '89 said, "People are really paranoid about this thing."

The new system did have its advantages. More than half of the freshmen said that they looked into houses that they wouldn't have otherwise once they knew their number. In addition, roommates tended to stick together more this year since rooming groups had to be chosen before house preferences. According to Colvin, freshmen joined a group based more on whom they wanted to live with rather than where they wanted to live.

While the Class of 1990 will probably go through the same system, future classes may see some revisions in the process of choosing and being assigned to the upperclass houses. Suggestions range from making the lottery totally random to allowing freshmen to know what houses still have room for them when they make their choices. But as Elaine C. Crespo '89 said upon hearing that her rooming group would be one of the last hundred out of the 529 to choose a house: "It won't make the Quad any closer."