Colin Maiwurm – Staff Writer

With midterms just around the corner, it also means that it’s time for students to set up their living situations for next year. The process is the same as in past years, but here is a reminder in case you are unsure of what to do. Over the past month, the staff of ResLife has been sending out emails regarding housing selection to all of the students. Within these emails are all of the information needed for participating in the housing selection. Go back and look at the emails for a more detailed description of how the housing selection process works.

“Everyone should have gotten process emails, that’s how we do our communication. They need to fill out a housing agreement and a room type application. We do the selection by room type, so there are five options: double, open gender double, triple, open gender triple, and quad,” Residential Life Coordinator Lisa Octigan said

At this point in the semester, the deadlines to complete the housing agreement, room type application, and finding roommates have passed. While these processes had deadlines, it is not too late to complete these steps. They are there to help keep students on track to get the housing situation they want. In order to complete these steps, students will have to go into their housing portal, which is found at housing.gac.edu. If students cannot find a roommate, they want to be assigned later, or they are really interested in being paired with an international student, then they can choose the “ResLife will sign up for me” option. The final step is for all of the roommates to come together to make a ranking of where they want to live the following year. They will then participate in room selection during their time slot. The time slot will be given out by email to the students at least one day before the room selection for the housing they selected. The time slots for room selection will begin early next week for the quads, triples, and doubles. 

With the limited housing available for each housing type, not everyone will be placed in the type that they signed up for. For this reason, the process for housing type selection is split up into groupings. First are the special housing types like Crossroads. These housing types have already had their room selection process. Next in line are the quads, then triples, followed by doubles. If students who signed up for a higher-up room type didn’t get in, they are then put into the pool for the double room selection. If a student wanted to live in a triple but couldn’t get in, then they would be put into the pool to be in a double. This allows for every student to have a room no matter which housing type they signed up for. 

“The selections for each type are random ranking by class, averaged between roommates. In the four-person selection, they are primarily going to be chosen by rising seniors because of the number of units and the number of seniors. We can’t even guarantee all seniors will have four-person units,“ Octigan said

Due to the ranking system, rising seniors will mostly be in the quads and triples. Then the rising Juniors will mostly be positioned in triples and doubles, leaving the rising sophomores mostly in doubles within Complex. 

In the off chance that a student ends up forgetting about their housing selection and it is the end of the semester or later, they do not need to panic and worry that they will not have a room for the next school year. If a student does not complete the housing forms, ResLife will place them into a room automatically. While this causes the students to miss out on deciding their roommate(s) as well as where they live, it is a safe backup to ensure every student has a place to live for the following school year. 

If students have any questions regarding the housing process of finding roommates, either go to the ResLife office or send them an email. 

“Reslife@gustavus.edu is the best first point because then it can get triaged to whoever the specific person is,” Octigan said.