The Office of Residential Life (ResLife) has extended the deadline for juniors to apply to Ladd House, the sole seniors-only College House, until after Spring Break in an effort to better align the application process with the general housing lottery. The deadline for applications was originally January 25.

Interim Assistant Director of Residential Education Tim Coston said the change came after ResLife and members of Ladd House found that the initial application timeline would pose difficulties for current juniors.

“For a lot of juniors coming back from abroad, or juniors going abroad, housing is not something that is super on their mind, and so we’ve got a lot of interest but it doesn’t seem like the right time for students,” said Coston.

Coston does not think the highly-anticipated opening of Park Row Apartments will deter juniors from applying to Ladd.

“I think that there’s a lot of interest, and rightly so, around Park Row Apartments right now,” said Coston. “Unfortunately, there are a limited number of beds and a vast majority of people won’t be able to live there. So I think people have been realistic about that and still have shown a lot of interest in Ladd.”

Both ResLife and current students consider Ladd a successful housing experiment. In its first year as a senior-only College House, according to its current residents, Ladd has given seniors unique opportunities they would not have had in other housing options.

“We have a whole a pot of ResLife money that you wouldn’t be able to use in other senior living spaces,” said Ladd House President Amber Orosco ’19. “We have a really large budget to work with … but we know how to use it since we’re older, and we’re not afraid to use it.”

Unlike other College Houses that are required to program for first years, Ladd, which doesn’t have affiliates, has been able to cater events to the senior class. Orosco, who lived in Ladd during her sophomore year, was excited to return to a space so central to campus life.

“The best thing about living in Ladd sophomore year is that we had so many requests to use the areas that we didn’t have an issue of feeling like there was a lull in programming, and it’s the same this year,” said Orosco. “We definitely prioritize putting on social events for the house and our friends and the senior class as opposed to for the campus.”

For Ladd Programming Director Simon Chow ’19, being in an all-senior College House has special advantages for putting on events.

“A large part is the fact that I’m a senior in a social house, and that has allowed me to use the connections that I’ve made from my years here at Bowdoin to create programming and create events,” said Chow.

According to Coston, ResLife plans to keep Ladd a senior-only house for the foreseeable future.

“This year we looked at it as a trial run, and the people living there have had overwhelming success,” said Coston. “I really think everyone has been pleasantly surprised at how much they’ve done and how active they are and how they’ve been able to do it in their own way.”

For Chow and the friends he blocked with, living in Ladd meant a new opportunity to make the most of their final year at Bowdoin.

“As a senior, a lot of times you think of applying to jobs, to graduate school, just trying to finish college,” said Chow. “We wanted to end it on a good note, really finish strong.”