With a timeslot of 9:20 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, the last day of the General Room Selection process, Andrei Codreanu ’27 entered the housing portal to find no rooms available.
He was placed on a waitlist and currently awaits a housing assignment. He presumes that his ultimate placement will not be with the students he blocked with, which refers to a roommate cohort with a maximum of six students whose assigned ‘block leader’ is responsible for distributing beds to each student in their block during the online selection process.
“It made me feel disappointed, as I was looking forward to housing with the rest of my block,” Codreanu said. “I think the administration should at least let people know ahead of time that they don’t have enough housing, as I’m sure they knew this would happen.”
After rising juniors and seniors selected on-campus housing in September instead of in the spring for the first time, room availability was sparse for first-year students like Codreanu who participated in the General Room Selection process from Monday, March 11 to Wednesday, March 13.
First-year students told The Sun about undesired housing outcomes, including being separated from friends, living far away from Central Campus and being waitlisted.
Anja Minty ’27 hoped to live in a new dorm near Central Campus. However, with her 8:20 p.m. 20-minute housing time slot on March 13, she reluctantly chose a double room in Schuyler House, while the three other students in her block chose 109 McGraw Place.
The rest of her friends will live in Ganędagǫ Hall, a 40-minute walk from Schuyler House.
Minty said she anticipated limited room availability but did not imagine living on South Campus, which is primarily located in the Collegetown area.
“I thought there was going to be a lot more of an aspect of choice in all of this,” Minty said.
She was especially disappointed in her housing arrangements for next year because Schuyler House, which is Cornell’s southernmost dorm located near Ithaca Commons, is far from not only her classes and friends, but also general campus life.
“As a student, everything you want is on campus,” Minty said. “I honestly don’t know how they still call it on-campus housing because it is really not on campus — it’s basically in [Ithaca] Commons. It’s just a really inconvenient distance, combined with the TCAT’s being a little unreliable.”
To make up for their arduous commute to campus, all Schuyler House residents receive a free bus pass, allowing students to choose between the 5-minute ride to Central Campus or the 15- to 20-minute uphill walk. Minty noted, however, that she has heard from current Schuyler residents that the TCAT is not always a dependable source of transportation.
Although Edgar Vilchez ’27 wanted a single room, he felt fortunate to select a double room in Morrison Hall. Even with an 8:30 p.m. time slot on the first day of room selection, Vilchez encountered a surprising lack of room availability.
“[My block] thought there would be more singles, but everything was gone for the dorms we wanted,” Vilchez said. “I didn’t expect really anything to be gone on the first day, but I was one of the few lucky ones to get a dorm of my choice.”
For rising sophomores on the housing waitlist, Housing and Residential Life maintained in a statement to The Sun that “all rising sophomores who participated in General Room Selection are guaranteed on-campus housing for the 2024-25 academic year.”
“[We are] actively working with those students who were impacted by the temporary pause in the selection process to assign their accommodations,” the statement reads.
But Codreanu said he is anxious about his unclear housing situation for the next academic school year.
“It’s a little stressful, but I am trying not to worry about it too much because there is nothing I can do about it,” Codreanu said.
Minty shared a similar feeling of unease leading up to General Room Selection given her late time slot and awareness of the new upperclassmen on-campus selection timeline, explaining that the undertaking has been more stressful than her upcoming prelims.
Some students criticized the University’s decision to facilitate upperclassmen housing selection prior to letting rising sophomores choose housing.
Vilchez suggested that the housing selection process be modified to ensure adequate space is available for rising sophomores, especially because they must fulfill a two-year residential requirement, while upperclassmen are not guaranteed on-campus housing.
Minty also critiqued the University’s prioritization of upperclassmen housing, believing it favors students who currently live on West Campus.
While all upperclassmen are entitled to West Campus housing, rising junior and senior West Campus residents who wish to continue living on campus get first pick. This year, they could opt into continued occupancy during the housing selection period from Sept. 5 to Sept. 13 to live in their same room again for the next academic year, or they could opt into the same community housing selection period from Sept. 14 to Sept. 18 to choose a room in the same House community on West Campus. Both of these processes occurred before upperclassmen general room selection period from Sept. 19 to Sept. 21 for rising juniors and seniors who wished to choose next year’s housing in any on-campus residency outside of their current residence.
Conversely, Minty presumes that rising juniors and seniors in less favorable housing will be more inclined to enter the later option of upperclassmen general room selection to obtain more favorable housing, leaving them with limited preferable locations after West Campus residents choose.
Minty anticipates that due to her undesirable housing arrangement for next year, she will be at a disadvantage for her junior-year housing if she wishes to participate in upperclassmen housing selection.
According to the Cornell Housing and Residential Life website, the adjusted timing allows rising juniors and seniors to have the “best understanding of [their] on-campus and off-campus options, allowing [them] to make informed decisions for the 2024-2025 academic year.”
Bana Hima ’27 agrees with the current upperclassmen housing process because she believes it is important for Cornell to prioritize accessible housing for all students. She plans to opt into on-campus housing during her junior year to save money before attending graduate school.
“It is unreasonable to expect that upperclassmen will be able to afford off-campus housing, so in that sense, I totally understand [prioritizing upperclassmen],” Hima said.
Ithaca has some of the most expensive housing rates in New York. While a single room in Cornell’s residence halls, program houses and West Campus houses cost $13,094 for the 2023-2024 academic year, the average rent for the a 785 sq. ft. apartment in Collegetown is $2,018, which amounts to a total cost of $24,216 for a 12-month lease.
Despite student concerns, the administration plans to continue offering on-campus housing to upperclassmen.
“We will continue to balance [on-campus housing] and create communities for both our incoming first-year class as well as upper-level students,” Housing and Residential Life wrote in a statement to The Sun.
However, students like Vilchez remain frustrated with the Cornell administration amid overcrowding and limited housing availability.
“I think we need to prioritize the incoming sophomores because of how many people don’t have housing, which is unacceptable,” Vilchez said.