When roommates Priscilla Matos and Jessie Daniel head to class in the morning from their 18th-story Harnwell College House dorm room, Matos typically takes the stairs, and Daniel uses the elevator.
Usually, they say, Matos reaches the lobby first.
For Matos, a Wharton senior, and Daniel, a Nursing senior, that result underscores problems with the high-rise elevators that have recently drawn attention from students and alumni.
University administrators say that, despite the concerns, renovations are still a few years off.
It's "a project we are intending on doing, but it is still at a very early stage," Mariette Buchman, the director of Design and Construction Management for Penn Facilities and Real Estate Services, wrote in an e-mail.
Recently, the elevators - which have not been renovated in 12 years - have been a hot topic on campus, especially for groups like the Undergraduate Assembly, which has actively supported replacing them.
Even alumni like Peter Kuperman, who last spring ran a well-publicized campaign to get students to convince him to donate money for the project by joining a Facebook group, have been weighing in on the subject.
But there may be reason to be hopeful - the University has submitted a Capital Needs Assessment for the project, is now doing feasibility studies and has hired consultants to determine how much work is needed, Buchman wrote.
That process should be completed by the end of the year, at which point plans for funding and design can get underway, she wrote.
For many students, though, the elevator renovations cannot come soon enough.
"It just becomes ridiculous at times like move-in and fall break," Matos said, when the elevators "don't allow things to flow smoothly."
More important, though, she said she is concerned about the safety of the elevators.
"A lot of the time, there's at least one that's not working," Daniel explained.
Housing and Conference Services spokeswoman Barbara Lea-Kruger said that even the old elevators are regularly inspected, and that renovation plans are not limited to the high rises - similar plans are also underway for Hill, Mayer and DuBois college houses' elevators.
Those renovations would bring them up to the standards of the Quadrangle and Rodin and Kings' Court/English college houses, all of which have had their elevators replaced in the last eight years, Lea-Kruger said.
The high-rise elevators have drawn the most attention, though.
There, especially, "the elevators are kind of important," said Phil Santoiemma, an Engineering junior in Rodin College House.
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