Registration for Alternative Spring Break 2012 was postponed until 7 p.m. Sunday night after overwhelming traffic caused the host website to crash early on Sunday. While Boston University students resumed registration, spots filled up within minutes and left many without program options.
ASB registration, originally scheduled for 8 a.m. on a site hosted by the Student Alumni Association’s website, was moved to an alternative host site, according to the Community Service Center’s website.
The alternative host site was part of the backup plan developed in December, said Student Union President Howard Male.
“It was very important that we moved to our backup plan,” the School of Management and School of Hospitality Administration senior said. “If we had not implemented the backup system, we still wouldn’t have completed registration.”
Male said registration was moved to the evening to accommodate students who had work and other commitments.
“The backup system worked very, very well,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s quite a record number, but we had an extremely high traffic amount.”
The CSC offered an online wait list for those who were unable to secure spots after registration resumed.
“The people on the wait list do have some opportunity, and we’ll be contacting them over the next few weeks.”
Male said ASB program managers are exploring a number of options to provide said opportunities to those on the wait list, but could not comment on what those were.
Micky Bedell, who worked as program manager for CSC last year, said ASB program managers have a lot of work to do with more than 30 trips to plan and only two coordinators for each trip.
“I can’t imagine they didn’t spend the last 11 hours trying to make sure that everything would be alright this time,” Bedell, a College of Communication junior, said in an email interview. “It’s not exactly easy to secure another server in such a short period of time, and I think they did a great job handling the situation.”
However, not all students agree, including COM freshman Ariel Bernberg.
“I feel really cheated,” Bernberg said in an email interview. “The trip I had selected, along with all the other trips, were completely sold out.”
Bernberg, who tried to sign up for ASB in Chicago, said she had been looking forward to the trip since her First-Year Student Outreach Project leaders told her about it last fall.
“I haven’t made loads of friends and have had a difficult time meeting people, so I was really excited about the opportunity that ASB presented,” she said.
SMG freshman Allison Siglinger was placed in her first-choice program in Cumberland Island, Ga., which she said was surprising, as she doubted the process would run smoothly Sunday evening.
“I knew they would try their hardest to get it up and running, but I still had my doubts,” she said.
Josh Crampsey, a sophomore in COM, secured a spot on the trip to Natchez, Miss. He said he would have felt as critical of the CSC if he hadn’t gotten a spot, but the program managers seemed to be doing everything they could.
“People were freaking out, but I’m happy because I got a trip,” he said. “I know that if I didn’t, I would probably be doing what all my friends are doing, which is hating on the CSC hardcore.”
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