Students expressed frustration following Boston University’s housing lottery with unexpectedly low room availability.
Housing selection for the 2023-2024 school year — a four-phase, months-long process — began Feb. 23. Participating students choose from dormitory or apartment-style residences for the following school year.
Ashley Crucey, a sophomore in the College of General Studies, said she had difficulty acquiring her desired housing during Community Selection as a rising junior.
“It was actually one of the worst experiences of my life,” Crucey said. “When it came to our time to pick … the only housing that was available was Fenway campus and the large dorms, which are Warren, West and Towers. And we got stuck in Towers in a double as juniors when we were hoping to get an on-campus apartment.”
Going forward, Crucely said she is hoping that BU prioritizes housing for its upperclassmen.
“I definitely think for on-campus apartment style, it should only be juniors and seniors,” she said. “Not everyone has the funds to live off-campus.”
The four phases — Same Room Selection, Same Room Pull-In, Internal Room Selection and Community Selection — occur from late February to early April. Community Selection, where students can move from their current building into a different location on-campus, is the last phase of the housing selection process.
BU spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email that about quarter of students participated in Same Room Selection or Same Room Pull-In, and more than half elected to do Community or Internal Selection.
BU offers about 12,000 beds for on-campus housing in over 140 student residences and guarantees housing for all four years, according to Riley.
Availability of beds on-campus has been a continuing issue as BU admits higher numbers of students. According to Riley, “the junior and sophomore class numbers are slightly higher than during the pandemic years.”
In Spring 2022, BU reopened the Fenway satellite campus to house CGS freshmen following over-enrollment. This spring, BU made the irregular choice to house CGS freshmen in 33 Agganis Way, traditionally reserved only for sophomores, juniors and seniors.
Vinny Sep, a sophomore in the College of General Studies, said he thought the freshmen housing placements could be the reason that less housing options were open to upperclassmen.
“They kind of just placed freshmen wherever that was open,” he said. “They’re most likely going to stay [in StuVi II] and they’re going to pull in all their friends, so that kind of skews things.”
Crucey said she thinks freshmen living in StuVi II has created a problem for upperclassmen.
“I’m not saying that they shouldn’t live there, but as an upperclassman, I would have preferred to be in one of those dorms, rather than be in a predominantly freshman dorm,” Crucey said.
Frida Chavero-Diaz, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she wanted to live in South Campus for her sophomore year, but due to limited availability, will be living in Sleeper Hall next semester.
“I don’t mind the housing in West,” Chavero-Diaz said. “I did want something slightly better, but I’m not too upset about it.”
Lola Kennedy, a junior in the College of Fine Arts, said living off-campus “worked out pretty perfectly” when she came back to campus after taking time off due to COVID-19.
“I came back halfway through the school year and it was really important to me to have a really communal living space and spend a lot more time with friends,” Kennedy said. “I prefer the independence [of living off-campus], and having a little home.”
Kennedy said she would never go back to on-campus housing because of the cost, food and small rooms and compared the housing lottery to “when people try to get concert tickets.”
“It’s literally the same thing, which feels a little ridiculous to me,” she said.
BU’s Disability and Access Services helps place students with disabilities or health-related symptoms into on-campus housing to fit their needs. Separately, the summer housing lottery, also known as Summer Swap and available for all students, opens up April 24, according to Riley.
Crucely said she is still trying to switch into an on-campus apartment for next year.
“I definitely want to do Summer Swap,” she said. “The dining hall is so bad, and I don’t know how much longer of this I can take.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that some freshmen were housed in Hotel Commonwealth. Only spring transfer students and single-semester students were housed in Hotel Commonwealth, not freshmen.
BU has done a super bad job at housing. Juniors and seniors all fail at housing. unfair