Nearly 400 students remain without Rutgers housing

It has been an “enormously long time” since Rutgers has not been able to provide on-campus housing to all those who wanted it, said Michael Stillwagon, director of Residence Life.

But this year, nearly 400 students who went through the housing lottery process remain without on-campus housing, he said.

“As the number of housing requests exceeded our ability to place everyone on campus, we developed some criteria for allocating the remainder of available spaces,” Stillwagon said in an email. “In this framework, the distance a student lived from campus became a critical factor.”

Because of the shortage of housing, out-of-state and international students were given priority because they would otherwise be unable to attend the University. Students who Rutgers deemed close enough to campus to commute were encouraged to do so.

“We did not make any determinations regarding access to vehicles, merely about an acceptable distance to commute to campus, which could include bus or train transportation,” he said.

Jeffrey Pellegrino, a transfer student, said he received an email from Residence Life notifying him that he was denied on-campus housing.

“Their reasoning for me not getting housing was because I live in South Plainfield, which is Middlesex County, which is right next to Rutgers,” Pellegrino said.

Fortunately for Pellegrino, he has a car and will be able to commute for the first semester. Residence Life told him he could re-apply for housing for the Spring 2015 Semester.

Stillwagon said no fair way exists to determine who is the most deserving of the on-campus housing spaces available, but Residence Life did their best to allocate the remaining spaces fairly.

The housing issue is partially a result of the admissions process not being an exact science, he said.

Residence Life and Undergraduate Admissions utilize statistical probabilities to determine how many students they think will accept admission and request to live on campus.

William O’Brien, director of Residence Life for Administration, said in an email that the communication between Residence Life and Admissions consists of regular meetings to discuss enrollment, but no exact scientific formula exists for housing demand.

“In addition, there is no exact formula to predict how many continuing students will decide to participate in the lottery process each year,” O’Brien said. “As demand continues to grow for housing, Rutgers continues to build additional spaces.”

O’Brien brought up the fact that the Busch, Engineering, Science and Technology Hall and the Livingston apartments were built due to the need for an additional 2,000 spaces. With the continued demand for on-campus spaces, the University is investing in additional projects, which he said is expected to add about 1,000 beds on the College Avenue campus over the next few years.

The lottery process begins in January. Students who want to live on campus for the following academic year will sign up for and receive a random lottery number, as well as seniority points based on their class year.

Seniority points are weighted more heavily than the lottery number, O’Brien said. 

Apartment selection utilizes seniority points, while suites and doubles utilize reverse seniority points.

During February and March, after students have received their lottery numbers, they have the opportunity to sign up for various housing options in February, including special interest housing such as Douglass Residential College and Honors College housing. They can sign up for doubles in March.

“Since the number of students participating in each housing option (apartments, suites, etc.) tends to exceed the number of available spaces, seniority points and lottery numbers are used to determine which student groups will be eligible to select,” O’Brien said in an email.

Although on-campus housing is not something Rutgers guarantees, Residence Life strives to house all first-year housing applicants, even if that means placing them in temporary lounge spaces.

“This year, all first year students will be moving into permanent housing,” he said.

Over the past several years, Residence Life has been able to find on-campus spaces for all students who requested housing, even those on the waitlist, Stillwagon said.

When students de-register from the University, which typically occurs around the third or fourth week of school, some housing spaces free up and can be given to students who were on the waitlist.

This is not a cure-all solution though, because a very high percentage of students who de-register end up working something out and re-registering.

As for the 400 students who remain on this year’s waitlist for housing, Stillwagon does not think the University will be able to find spaces for them as the percentage of students who de-register is not large, so not many vacancies are expected.

He did say that the Old Gibbons residence halls were “brought online” to house 90 to 100 transfer students. These rooms were not intended for use this year, as they are “not the best spaces in the world.”

Stillwagon said they are old and outdated, but nonetheless useful in this case, good enough for a pinch.