By Meghan Colloton
Her freshman year, Jacquelyn Conace lived in Rubenstein Hall – a modest apartment-style residence hall near the Museum of Fine Arts with no living room and mice in the ceiling. But with a little help from lottery selection and a number in the 1700s, she upgraded. This year, the sophomore psychology major has a Davenport A residence featuring a living room, kitchen, one-and-a-half bathrooms and three bedrooms for five people.
“It’s much nicer and bigger,” Conace said.
The housing application for full-time undergraduate students planning to live on campus for the 2005-06 academic year is now available on the myNEU Web site, a system that is new this year.
“We are very excited to have implemented an online application this year,” said Carrie Lemasa, the assistant director for on-campus housing. “Our goal is to make things as easy as possible for students to understand the process and to meet all deadlines.”
Current freshmen, sophomores, middlers and juniors must apply for housing by Jan. 13, 2005 to be eligible for the housing lottery, where they will get to choose their residence halls based on a numbers system, said Lemasa.
Current freshmen and sophomores must also submit a housing deposit with their applications to be guaranteed housing for the upcoming year. Current middlers and juniors should wait to send in a deposit until they receive a lottery number, as they are not guaranteed a housing spot, Lemasa said. Their deposits must be in by Feb. 22, 2005.
Students must simply log into their myNEU account at www.myneu.neu.edu, click on the self-service tab and complete the housing application.
If students are applying with roommate choices, they need to know their roommates’ myNEU user name.
Previously, students needed to know their roommates’ social security numbers, but Housing Services felt it was not necessary and there were many application errors because of this, Lemasa said.
Now, students will be able to review their application for accuracy to make sure they have the correct information, including roommate selection.
Ryan Dunlevy, a freshman international business major, said he plans to get together with his prospective roommates and go over everything they need. Dunlevy is not worried about housing for next year.
“Most of the sophomore housing is pretty good from what I have seen,” Dunlevy said. “I’m just going to go with the flow.”
The deposit amount for the fall and spring semesters is $200 each and $100 for each summer term. Students who miss their deposit deadline run the risk of not being guaranteed housing for those semesters, said Christina O’Sullivan, vice president for housing services.
All students will be notified of their status, whether they have received a lottery number or have been placed on the waiting list, on Feb. 11, 2005.
Those students that have made all of their deposits by their respective deadlines will be able to select their space for next year at the Room Selection Forum in March.
A portion of the rising sophomore class, or current freshmen, with the highest lottery numbers will not select at the Room Selection Forum, but will be assigned housing by mid-July.
Not all members of an apartment group need to attend the Room Selection Forum. But all authorized proxy cards must be signed and brought to the room selection process by those selecting the apartment, O’Sullivan said.
“Students will not be able to hold spots in apartments for students with later lottery numbers or for students on the waiting list,” O’Sullivan said. “The best you can do is let the students know which room you have selected and have them check the room when they go to the Room Selection Forum.”
As far as those that try to ensure a strong lottery number, there is no way to obtain such a guarantee, Lemasa said.
“Lottery numbers are randomly generated by class year,” Lemasa said.
Although rising seniors and juniors are not guaranteed housing, the rising seniors, or current juniors, that receive lottery numbers will receive the best numbers. This means these students will choose first during the Room Selection Forum. The middlers will receive the next best numbers, and then the sophomores and so on.
Once the application is complete and submitted, the next step is planning for which residence hall looks appealing. The selection process can seem intimidating, particularly to freshmen going through it for the first time.
“I am worried if I am going to get placed with my friends and if I do, where are we going to live?” said Linda Endicott, a freshman architecture major.
Tours will be available after the winter holiday to aid students that aren’t sure which residence hall would be best for them.
“The tours are a great opportunity for students to see what is available out there for them,” O’Sullivan said. “They get a better sense of what’s there besides looking at a floor plan.”
Any additional question students have can be answered at several drop-in information tables around campus available after the holiday break and before the application deadline, Lemasa said.
Also, this information is listed on the back of the brochure every student had mailed to their home address and placed in their on-campus mailbox.
Housing selection can be frightening, but students need to make sense of it in order to make the right choice, Conace said.
“They should really look at housing selections and see what they want price-wise,” she said. “Even though Rubenstein is not as nice [as Davenport A], you need to be considering what your financial options are, and make sure you know about each residence hall.”
