Freshmen in the College of General Studies and new transfer students, who moved on campus the first time at the beginning of the spring semester, are voicing their concerns with regards to their housing assignments.
Ashley Chang, a student who transferred to BU this semester and a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, requested to live in a traditional dorm on her housing application and was assigned to live in Hotel Commonwealth.
“I was so disappointed when I saw that email,” Chang said. “I went straight to the website and I saw it was Hotel Commonwealth and I was so confused.”
BU Housing does not know how many of its 12,000 beds are available until after the university reopens at the beginning of each calendar year, according to BU spokesperson Colin Riley. With the number of available beds constantly fluctuating, BU Housing does not release their assignments until a “week or more before spring move-in.”
Because of this, students are temporarily placed in Hotel Commonwealth at 500 Commonwealth Ave. Riley wrote BU needs time to prepare rooms for students to move into vacancies in the spring semester.
“It just takes time for students to vacate, turn in their keys, and for the University staff to get the rooms to be ready,” Riley wrote in an email. “It is an extremely busy time.”
As a transfer student, Chang said being placed at the hotel limited her ability to socialize and get acquainted with campus life.
“I couldn’t even tell if someone else was a BU student,” she said.
Chang was eventually assigned to an on-campus apartment on Bay State Road, which was not what she initially put on her housing request form. She was one of over 100 students given a temporary housing assignment at the beginning of the spring semester.
“On the housing list, I put ‘apartment’ as my last choice,” Chang said. “ I was kind of disappointed because the price was way more than I expected.”
Kaitlyn Pinette, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, transferred here this semester and was also temporarily placed in Hotel Commonwealth. While she “wasn’t opposed to the idea” of living in a hotel, she thought it was better than the housing she ended up getting when she got her permanent assignment.
Pinette was eventually assigned to live in Danielsen Hall. She said she originally wanted something “centrally located” on campus, and she contacted BU housing hoping for a better solution.
“I actually contacted them to see if I could stay in the hotel until they found a different housing location for me,” Pinette said. ”But they said that they couldn’t do that, and that I had to accept the housing,”
According to Riley, these housing assignments are “not unusual” at the start of the spring semester.
“We certainly understand it may be frustrating — and an inconvenience — for the very small percentage of individuals affected,” Riley wrote.
All students who were temporarily placed in Hotel Commonwealth were relocated to on-campus housing about two weeks ago, according to Riley.
The terms and conditions of BU’s 2023-2024 residence license agreement state that the university “reserves the right to assign and reassign students in the residential system” at any time. The agreement also states that students may be given temporary accommodations at the beginning of the fall semester as a result of “over-subscription” to the residential system.
The housing agreement does not mention temporary housing during the spring semester.
Over-subscription has not only affected transfer students.
Liza Van, a freshman in the College of General Studies was placed in Danielsen Hall with a random roommate who was not the one she had requested. Van said that Danielsen Hall was not even an available option in the housing application she filled out.
“I didn’t get any of the dorms that I put down on the ranking,” Van said. “With CGS dorms, they give you a housing application that makes it seem like you do have a choice when you really don’t have a choice.”
Van said that her requested roommate also ended up in Danielsen Hall, but on a different floor.
According to Van, other students she talked to who were in CGS also did not get the dorm they wanted. Last year, the Daily Free Press reported that CGS freshmen were living in Student Village 1 and 2, despite the buildings being reserved for upperclassmen.
Sofia Bernitt, a sophomore in the College of General Studies, requested to room with Romina Fernandez, another sophomore in CGS, but were assigned to separate dorms at 575 Commonwealth Ave. last spring semester, similar to Van’s situation this semester.
After having difficulties with their new roommates, Bernitt and Fernandez contacted BU housing to see if they could switch housing and received minimal response.
“I remember lots of waiting on hold, lots of inclusive answers, a lot of people saying there’s nothing we can do about it for now, check back in a couple of weeks or months,” Bernitt said.
Fernandez said she reached out to BU housing because she was “stressed to the point of tears” and only then received a better response.
“They weren’t willing to help me or offer me any other options until I mentioned that I was in that sort of distress,” Fernandez said. “Why should students be put in that distress to be able to have better opportunities?”
Eventually, Bernitt and Fernandez were allowed to leave their on-campus housing and move into an off-campus apartment.
“If [BU Housing] has had this problem previously… it’s a little bit disappointing that they’re letting the same thing happen again when they know that it’s putting students in an uncomfortable position,” Bernitt said. “They should’ve learned.”
Maya Mitchell contributed to this article.
