Around 200 left without on-campus housing

About 200 undergraduates did not receive room assignments in one of the last phases of the housing process last week, according to University Housing and Conference Services officials.

"It's hard to accommodate everyone, but this has been really frustrating," College sophomore Abby Poses said, noting that she and her friends were not able to get housing.

"We called Housing and the dean [of Hamilton College House], but they said their hands were tied and that it is the computer who decides everything," she added.

College freshman and Daily Pennsylvanian columnist Michelle Dubert was also unhappy last week after being shut out of the Housing assignments process.

Like other students, Dubert did not receive the room she and her friends had requested for the upcoming year and was left without lodging.

"We never anticipated encountering this kind of problem," Dubert said. "We were furious."

While Dubert and her friends resolved the situation by applying for doubles in the high rises, there are still students who remain homeless -- and Housing officials said this situation is hardly unusual.

"It happens every year that some students remain without a room," Assistant Director for Housing Administration Eleanor Rupsis said. "This year, about 200 students did not get a room assignment because nothing of what they requested was available." She added that this figure increased by 40 people since last year.

Students were not offered alternative lodging from the Housing office. Room contracts bind students to the room they are assigned, so the Housing office prefers to place students on waitlists instead.

"It is typical to have a waitlist. Some [students] choose to wait, while others find accommodations off campus," Rupsis said.

Rooms will then be assigned following cancellations of available spots, as the housing system still has vacancies in the residential programs and on various floors.

"It is easier for us to find space for one or two than for four, but there are still spaces in the residential programs," Rupsis added.

Housing personnel said that despite the waitlist, there is no guarantee that a student will be assigned a spot. If the applicant is willing to be flexible, however, it is "very unlikely" that he or she will remain without a room, Rupsis said.

Upon receiving the housing notification -- available online since last Thursday -- the student is bound by contract to the assigned room and cannot refuse it without paying a cancellation fee that increases as the move-in date approaches. If the cancellation is made before April 15, the student must pay $250, while after July 1 the fee rises to 25 percent of the semester's rent. Usually, between now and the beginning of classes in the fall, about 300 students cancel their room reservation.

The housing process has three routes according to the type of request a student submits. The first route involves those students who want to retain a space in the house they currently occupy. The second is community living, available only for particular room types. The third is the inter-house room change, where a student can move into any college house.

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