As Dartmouth students leave sub-zero temperatures in Hanover for warmer climes, Winter term brings some much-needed respite to the Office of Residential Life.
"It's a good term from our perspective," said Rachael Class-Giguere, the director of the Housing Office. "Unlike the fall, we don't have a waitlist. In fact, we have a lot of vacancies, and we can even fulfill late requests."
There are vacancies in doubles, triples and quads at this stage in the term, with the possibility of more rooms becoming available as the term progresses.
According to Class-Giguere, students often make last-minute changes to their D-plans and neglect to inform the Housing Office until they receive their Winter term bill from the College.
Academic actions and appeals tend to be resolved in the first weeks of January, leading to more vacancies.
The office will also perform occupancy checks of all rooms towards the end of the week with the help of community directors and undergraduate advisors. Students who have not moved in by that time are contacted in order to verify their enrollment status.
On Jan. 12, the office will post a list of available rooms on the ORL BlitzMail bulletin, including any available singles. Students requesting room changes can sign up on Jan. 13 and Jan. 14, and by the afternoon of Jan. 14, the Housing Office will start making assignments based on priority numbers.
Since Winter term enrollment numbers are much lower than those in the spring and fall, the Housing Office can accommodate most room change requests and even offer leave-term housing to students who choose to remain in Hanover while not taking classes.
This has led to a misconception in the past that singles are easy to come by in the Winter, when in reality the demand for singles remains high.
"While we try to give people their first-choice rooms, expectations tend to be so high that they simply cannot be met," said Class-Giguere.
This year, Fall term was better than in the recent past. According to Class-Giguere, her office was able to house everyone from the waitlist, even though the process continued into the last weeks of the summer.
No students were housed in residence hall lounges this fall, a last-resort solution that was employed three years ago following an unexpectedly high yield for the Class of 2005. However, there were no remaining vacancies for "room swap."
With the dorms north of Maynard Street still in the planning stages, the housing crunch is set to persist for many more years. The agreement between the College and the Town of Hanover for the Tree House dormitories, which were originally meant to be temporary structures for a period of just three years, recently was extended to alleviate the situation.
