On Wednesday, the Office of Residential Life and Housing announced immediate changes to room draw for next year, effective immediately. For rising seniors who already drew their for rooms, these changes will be retroactive and will annul housing choices made earlier this week.
The introduction of Lilac Hill housing has led to significant upset in room draw, with data about what different numbers can achieve being made less reliable than in the past.
“We already knew students were upset, but when we found out that the students we liked were upset, we realized we needed to change what we’re doing,” said an anonymous dean of students. “We’re always able to give our favorite RAs better housing, but for most students, we just work with their numbers. This year, that didn’t work as well.”
Instead of having students select their rooms, rooms will be individually determined by a committee of goslings, primarily composed of the children of Mother Goose. The goslings will have access to students’ housing questionnaires, and will make their decisions based on those and a single paragraph statement each student is allowed to submit.
Students may request roommates, but approval is subject to the goslings’ discretion. They may determine the bond between two individuals is completely insufficient. Students who already drew will be allowed to keep their roommate groups, but may be moved to different dorms, depending on room availability and where the goslings believe they should live.
This new system is controversial, with some rising seniors being upset at the prospect of being placed in Goodhue (the goslings reportedly hold grudges against students who sneeze too much, and may place them in less desirable housing). Some younger students, however, seemed pleased:
“One of the goslings told my roommate he’d make sure we got a townhouse,” said Isaac Kofsky ’27. “I used to give the geese some bread on my morning walk to geology, and I guess it paid off.”
It’s still unclear how the goslings will communicate their decisions to Res Life, or whether there will be an appeals process for dissatisfied students.
Bon App representatives, however, were very troubled by this new policy, suspecting it’ll increase the amount of bread stolen from the dining halls (the goslings are reported to be highly susceptible to glutinous bribes).
“Most of the time, if students are taking food from the dining halls, it’s muffins and desserts,” said a student employee in Burton. “Now they’re taking bread too, which creates a lot more work for us.”
The success of room draw this year will determine whether this system is continued in the future, or whether room draw will revert back to the typical room draw process. The administration may also try using different Carleton wildlife. Students will be able to offer feedback in mid-Fall Term 2024 to allow them to settle in to their new rooms before submitting the form.
