Roll of the Dice

Long before randomization became a catchphrase, masters had the final say when it came to selecting residents of their Houses. Then, any single characteristic--socioeconomic background, grades or race--could secure a student's admission into the House or kill their chances of getting in.

Now, randomization has changed all that. To the computer that determines the housing fate of almost every member of the first-year class, students are simply men and women who must be allocated to the Houses in a way that preserves the Houses' gender balances and keeps each House within its population limits.

Here's how the process works:1. The second semester of the first year begins with a burst of proctor meetings and notices about the upcoming housing lottery. The Freshman Dean's Office (FDO) posts a list of frequently asked questions to explain the process to anxious first-years.

2. February 18: Deadline for students who require special accommodation for medical reasons to submit forms to the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC). The center reviews all applications for lottery exemption. If a student's petition is granted, the SDRC places the student in the most suitable House.

3. Second week in March: The "Lottery Application Packet" is distributed to all first-years. Students begin the tedious and often tense process of formalizing their "blocking groups." The College guarantees that all the students in a blocking group will be assigned to the same House.

4. Mid-March: Students submit blocking group forms. The grouping must be entered on a College website and a hard copy must be submitted to representatives of the Undergraduate Housing Office (UHO). 271 blocking groups registered this year with the UHO, up from 184 groups last year, when the maximum blocking group size was twice this year's limit of eight.

5. Mid-March: A computer program checks all of the web entries to make sure students' last names match up with their ID numbers. The computer also checks to makes sure that each first-year is accounted for and is properly entered into the lottery. Representatives from the UHO call those first-years that have not submitted forms--typically about 10 to 15 students each year, according to Mac Broderick, assistant director of the lottery.

6. Mid-to-late-March: The UHO prepares the computer program that will randomly assign the blocking groups. Parameters are set that will limit the number of students who can be assigned to each individual House based on continuing student population in that House and expected attrition. Gender ratio parameters for entering students are also included and typically centered around 1.1 men to one woman. A 0.15 margin of error is allowed.

7. Computerized entries from the web are fed into the computer. Within seconds, the computer completes the Housing assignments. The UHO often invites first-year members of the Undergraduate Council to watch the computer churn out the results. This past year, however, no first-years were invited.

8. This year, the computer assigned the following numbers of people to the Houses: Adams 138, Cabot 122, Currier 121, Dunster 126, Eliot 146, Kirkland 128, Leverett 161, Lowell 150, Mather 136, Pforzheimer 123, Quincy 150 and Winthrop 131.

9. The UHO then processes the data, prints out the results and folds the letters of fate into envelopes. The preparation takes several days.

10. A few days before the start of spring break: Staff members from the UHO begin distributing envelopes to a representative from each blocking group at about 8:30 a.m. Students learn their assignments.

11. Residents from the 12 Houses greet first-years and future House residents at Annenberg Hall. Students soon depart for spring break destinations.