By Hayley Van Allen
Last Summer, 40 incoming freshman were told only a couple weeks before arriving on campus that they would be living off-campus, separated from the rest of their classmates. These students were promised priority housing the following year as a way to make up for their off-campus apartments. To help combat the ambiguity surrounding the housing draw for next year, we spoke to a few freshman who are currently living at the CGU apartments.
Since August of 2017, ResLife has been hesitant to give any concrete answers to how the process would work. Finally, in mid-February, the Director of Campus Life Brenda Ice met with the students living at CGU to answer questions about the upcoming housing draw. The meeting was held at the apartments and open to the 28 students still living off-campus at CGU.
Throughout the semester, students have moved back on campus into rooms that were reserved for roommate issues and other housing issues, leaving only 28 first years in off campus housing. Additionally, some rooms opened up second semester because students who were living on-campus studied abroad. Because ResLife had been unclear in the beginning of the year about how the housing process would work, many students didn’t know whether they would still be given access to priority housing after moving back on campus.
In an email sent out out March 27th, Ice confirmed that any student who had lived in the CGU apartments for at least 3 weeks would be given priority housing. This means that somewhere between 35 and 38 students will be choosing their housing a day before the current seniors, but after those with housing accommodations.
Within the group of “CGU-ers” given priority housing, the 28 students remaining will be given the first numbers for the housing lottery and those who moved will have lower numbers within the group. According to our sources, the CGU-ers who still remain in the apartments suggested placing those who left at the top of the draw for incoming sophomores. This would have ensured that they were given some priority, but didn’t take spots away from the upperclassmen.
ResLife had initially been carefully monitoring the number of on-campus students that would be pulled into the higher priority housing draw. This changed after the email sent out on Tuesday when Brenda Ice told CGU-ers that they could pull whoever they wanted up with them.
All that’s left for students to find out is when exactly what order will be choosing housing and whether their specific room choice will be available. Those with accomodations have not yet been assigned housing for the next year, so the exact rooms available are still unknown.
Unfortunately, ResLife has not offered information on whether the CGU apartments will be utilized for Scripps students again next year. Many students have asked, but ResLife has declined to reveal their plans. A concern of many living at CGU seems to be that others first years will have to go through the same experience that they did: living off-campus, housed in forced doubles, taking a shuttle to and from campus. However, after a significant drop in the acceptance rate this year (9.0%), it seems that the administration may not need to use the off-campus apartments again. Hopefully, this is the last time this year’s unusual housing process is used.
Image Credit to Rancho Pacific Electric Inc.
