Housing is one of the most important aspects for a student’s college experience. It is so essential to how students prepare, socialize, and enjoy their school. With that in mind, it makes sense why students want to be able to pick and choose what dorm they stay in.

This is why the housing selection process is vital. There are a couple of steps that need to be accomplished before a student can officially be placed in a housing assignment. The first part of that is the housing points. Housing points determine how early you get to pick your housing assignment; the more points the better your chances.

Prior to this semester, the housing points were calculated from a number of different things. Your GPA, community service hours, club/organization positions, and attendance at residence hall events were just a couple of things used to measure housing points. Now, it is simply a very GPA-based system. This may not necessarily be the best criteria to determine where a student will be living at for an entire year. The old system that was in place gave students a significant amount of opportunity to raise their housing points, while being extremely involved around campus.

The need for housing points pushed students to get out of their rooms and be active on campus. If they did not, then North or Martin Hall was at the end of the tunnel for them. With the new system in place, it is a slippery slope. One bad academic semester could have a student at the bottom of the barrel despite the amount of extracurriculars or residence hall events they were involved in.

That is not the only change in the housing selection system. Up until this semester, in order to register for the Townhouses, a paper sheet was signed by everyone who was to be included in the house and submitted that way. It was an easy method because one person can write down everyone’s names and that was that. The new way is through the internet. Anyone who plans to be in the houses has to go online and request and accept each other as roommates in order to register for the Townhouses.

That is eight different people trying to round each other up. If even one irresponsible person forgot to either request or accept, the plan to reside in the houses is ruined. Even though this is the system for every other dormitory, the other housing options do not have eight people in a room or suite. The less people that need to request and accept each other, the easier the process is for them.

Ultimately, these changes will be seen as commonplace and students will adapt to it. However, that doesn’t mean that this new method is fair to most students.