The housing lottery for Simpson College students has been changed this year. In the past, students had to submit paper copies of their housing preferences to Residence Life. Now, the housing lottery system has been changed to digital.
Jacob Stewart, the community advisor team lead in Buxton, explained this new system is simpler for both Residence Life and the Simpson students.
“It’s a lot simpler on our end…it’s a lot easier doing it online,” he said.
Office Coordinator for Student Development Mindy Blanchard explained the new process.
“Instead of bringing in a paper to student development you can just click on the link that was sent in an email or it is also offered in SC Connect,” she said.
Residence Life hopes converting the process to online will help make it a better experience for students. Though Assistant Director of Residence Life Laura Glaswo said students should stay aware of application deadlines.
“Depending on which type of unit students are looking for is going to dictate when their application is due,” she said.
Students who want two or three-person apartments must have their form filled out by Feb. 20, and the housing selection date for these students will take place on Feb. 25. Four-person apartments have a due date of Feb. 27, with selection taking place on March 4. Students who want to live in Buxton Hall or Picken Hall are due on March 6, and selection will take place on March 11.
Director of Residence Life Lucas Herb-Mullin spoke on the benefits of the new system.
“If students run into issues or they have concerns about a certain living community, it gives us a buffer to like calm them down and have a conversation, explore options and then if for some reason we make a mistake or we need to update something we have that buffer time to work though those,” he said.
Simpson students may be worried about missing the submission deadline, but Blanchard assured students will still be selected for housing.
“Anyone who misses the deadline essentially won’t get ranked but still gets to pick at the end of the group,” she said.
Advisor of Greek Life and Area Coordinator Jessica Stormoen warned students may be living in the Fraternity Houses.
“As much as it’s not preferred, because of the space constraints we currently have, it is necessary till those houses are getting filled,” she said. “We are trying our best to work with the members to get those houses filled, boost up recruitment, see what things we can do to help make it so the houses are filled with their members.”
This year, Greek life students will also fill out a form to ensure Simpson knows which students are in which rooms.
Residence Life wants students to know this system is not much different from the past.
“We’re here. We didn’t create any new crazy policies. We really tried to be more efficient and support that student experience,” Herb-Mullin said.
