Three hundred and thirteen students have applied to live in College Houses for the 2014-2015 school year. There are 200 spots, not including eight house proctor positions.
Despite the changes in the College House application process—which allowed upperclassmen to apply in blocks of up to eight students—rising sophomores still dominate the applicant pool. Twenty upperclassmen applied—twice as many as last year—but not as many as the Office of Residential Life presumed would.
“We expected to have more upperclassmen applicants due to the change in the blocking system,” said Assistant Director of Residential Life (ResLife) Madelaine Eulich, “but the ones we do have are strong, and that’s really what we were looking for.”
Overall application numbers were roughly the same as last year; last year, 319 students applied.
The most popular first-choice houses were MacMillan, Baxter and Quinby, in that order, with MacMillan receiving 63 first-choice applicants for 25 beds. The houses that received the most applications regardless of preference were MacMillan, Ladd and Quinby.
Unlike last year, when some rooms in Howell went to the lottery, this year there are enough applications to fill all the beds in every house.
This is the first round of applications since the College House affiliation model was modified. Unlike previous years when all affiliates came from the same dorm, House affiliates are now spread throughout the first-year bricks and affiliated by floor.
“I think a lot of the students were expecting a lower number of College House applicants because the floating floor system has made it a little bit harder for College Houses to really connect with their affiliates,” said Eulich, “but we didn’t see that.”
“People seem really excited,” she added, “we have a lot of strong applications.”