By Michele Richinick

Some students choosing to live on-campus next year now have the option of selecting their housing online rather than in-person as in previous years.

Last spring, Housing Services piloted an online room selection process for rising juniors and seniors to select their Fall 2007 housing, Philomena Mantella, senior vice president of enrollment and student life, said in an e-mail to The News. After the success of the program, the Housing Task Force decided to launch a full scale online room selection for Fall 2008 assignments, she said.

“Over the last few years, we have been working toward this change,” said Ann Marie Regan, director of campus life operations. “Both administration and students felt an online system would benefit the entire student population, especially students on co-op, since many students are not on campus in order to select their room in person.”

The online system also provides more detailed information to students including apartment availability, sample 360 degree tours and actual floor plans, which the in-person process did not allow, Regan said.

In the housing publications, Housing Services made it clear to students that if they desired they could select their housing in person with the assistance of a housing staff member during their scheduled time to select, Regan said.

“Several students did choose this option throughout the process [last year], but the overwhelming majority selected online successfully,” she said.

Housing services researched other universities that use the same housing management system, which was designed specifically for higher education housing departments and includes an enhanced online room selection system, Regan said.

“After receiving some excellent feedback from other colleges, we decided that it was time for Northeastern to go online,” Regan said.

With a full-scale online room selection that began Feb. 14 and ended last night, housing administrators began an extensive campaign for marketing, educating and communicating with students involved in the process, Mantella said. Some of the items included developing a comprehensive guide that outlined the step-by-step process for selecting a room online and providing campus tours and online chats for students, she said.

In order to test the system and correct any problems during the regular upperclassmen selection, the first 100 students selected housing a week prior to the full-scale selection. Then, 35 students were assigned for every half hour to choose housing. The number of students to choose was limited to only 400 per day.

Housing services left a day in between each scheduled selection to assist students if they had issues or to fix any problems, Mantella said.

Some students, like Hannah Matheson, a freshman nursing major, said they were disappointed in their lottery numbers.

“I wasn’t at Northeastern last year so I can’t compare the processes, but it seems like online selection would be significantly more convenient for most students, myself included,” Matheson said.

Other students, like Whitney Pray, a freshman anthropology major, thought the process was easy to use.

“I had a bad lottery number and don’t get to choose housing, but my friend had a good lottery number and it only took her four minutes to pick,” she said.

After selecting their housing online, students had the option to take a satisfaction survey. Eighty-one percent were either satisfied or very satisfied with the process, Mantella said.

“This process was a success and students seem to have approved of the system,” Mantella said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, housing services had more than 2,700 students assigned to housing and expect another 300 students to be assigned by the end of the week.