Housing Lottery

The links below will guide you through the Pforzheimer House lottery and room selection process. To get a better feeling of the housing options available to you, please browse the Pforzheimer House Floor Plans. For useful information about lottery procedures and deadlines, please read the Room Selection Process below as well as the Pfoho Housing Constitution very carefully. Finally, for information about the room selection process, please browse the link relevant to your class standing (upperclass or rising sophomore).

Additional important housing information and deadlines are available from the Dean of Students Office. Housing forms are available online via the Residential Portal, also linked from the DSO website noted above. Students can log into the portal to complete the following forms: Housing Cancellation, Returning Student Application, InterHouse Transfer Request, Dudley Co-Op Relocation Form, and Request for Dudley House Affiliation.

The Lottery-Helpful Quicklinks and Information

(Lottery Registration will be open Thursday, April 6th through Saturday, April 15th at 12:00pm)

Virtual Housing Lottery Office Hours will take place via Zoom next week at the following times: 

 

Monday, April 10th from 1:00pm to 3:00pm

              Tuesday, April 11th from 12:00pm to 2:00pm

              Thursday, April 13th from 11:00am to 1:00pm

 

The Belltower Lottery:As in years past, we will be running a separate BELLTOWER SUITE LOTTERY (includes rooms Moors 403 [quad], 404 [triple], & 410 [quad]) – earlier than the rest of the lottery If you’d like to compete for the Belltower Suite, either as a group of 8 or 11, you must have *senior status, and submit your list of blockmates via the Belltown Lottery Form by THURSDAY APRIL 13TH at 12:00 PM. If you are a Junior and want to participate in the Belltower lottery as part of a blocking group, you must select senior status this year and participate as a senior. As a reminder, you can only participate as a senior in the housing lottery once, so for the next year you would participate with junior status. The group that wins the Belltower Lottery will be assigned to those suites. The groups that do not win the belltower lottery must register for the regular lottery using the Housing Lottery Registration Form.
 

*Senior Status: refers to rising seniors (having completed 6 or 7 terms as of this semester). If you are a rising junior wishing to participate in the Belltower Lottery, you can take senior status a year early. You can only use your senior status once, so if you use it as a junior, the next year you will have to participate in the lottery using your formerly junior status.

The General Junior/Senior Lottery:
Floor plans
for our student rooms are available (HarvardKey) required) from the House Website. We have detailed maps of Comstock, Holmes and Moors, Wolbach, and the Jordans. Cronkhite floor plans will be available soon. There is also a pdf list of the Available Rooms for 2023 Lottery broken down into type (e.g. singles, doubles, quads, quints, etc.). You will note that a number of rooms in Comstock and Holmes are listed on the Doubles tab of the Rooms Available list as 200 sq foot, one room doubles. These have flexed in years past from singles to doubles to accommodate House population. As we continue to have a large House population, these rooms will be available to select as n-1 Doubles in the lottery if you so wish. Floor plans for Cronkhite can be found here. Please note that the Tutor Suite is incorrectly outlined on this floorplan. The tutor suite in Cronkhite is comprised of rooms 322 and 324, not 300 and 301.

The Lottery Registration Form will be active through Saturday, April 15th at 12:00pm. You should complete the registration form either as a group OR individual. If you are registering for the lottery as a group, designate one person to register your entire group by submitting the form one time. If you are registering as an individual, please complete the form for yourself. The reason that they are called 'averaging groups' is that while each person is assigned a random lottery number, these numbers are averaged together to determine your group lottery number.

Averages are based off your terms completed students, for example who will be second semester seniors in the fall are assigned a 1, students who will be first semester seniors in the fall assigned a 2, juniors who have completed 5 terms are assigned a 3, and so on and so forth. Your group’s numbers will be averaged together, and then entered the lottery. If you register as an individual, your status is your averaged number (a rising senior with 6 terms completed at the end of this semester would be a 2, for example, the same average as a group of other rising seniors who have completed 6 terms at the end of this semester). It is this group number which is used to determine the order of room picks. Averaging groups need not be the same as your rooming groups. Members of the same averaging group merely pick rooms at the same room-pick assigned time slot. So, if you want to live in a suite together, you must average together. However, averaging together doesn't mean that you must live in a suite together.

Remember, you must completely fill the space you select during housing selection. This means that an averaging group of 12 can break down into four triples, or three quads, or six doubles, or 12 singles, if you wish. Be sure to have your priorities and back-up options picked out as a group before April 17th and April 20th.


REGARDLESS OF THE SIZE OF YOUR AVERAGING GROUP (1 is the minimum 12 is the maximum), YOU MUST REGISTER. Even if you don’t plan on living with anyone, you must register as a group of one.

Senior Standing: Juniors with advanced standing (academically) will automatically still be considered as rising juniors unless they inform the House Administrator that they wish to be considered as seniors for the lottery. You may only have your senior standing once, so if you choose to be considered as a senior, but then stay a fourth year, you will have to pick as a junior for your fourth year. While tempting, this generally is not a great move if you plan to stay around for four years. The Lottery Tool notes your class level. Students in their fourth year who used advanced standing (or senior standing) in their third year will be assigned the housing status of ‘rising junior’.

A note about DAO Approved Accommodation:

If you have a DAO approved accommodation for something housing specific, it has already been communicated to me via DAO. If you are in the midst of a DAO approval process and your pending accommodation has yet to be approved, then I would not know unless you tell me about it. Most students in Pfoho who participate in the rising Junior/Senior General Housing lottery can select a room that meet an approved DAO accommodation, but please do reach out to me via email to chat prior to the lottery if you have specific questions.

How Selection Night will work:

  1. Assigned selection times based off the lottery will be sent out via email and posted via a link to the House website and shared with those participating in the lottery on Sunday, April 16th.
  2. Groups and individuals with the lowest lottery numbers (seniors, mixed groups that are majority seniors) will select housing on Monday 4/17. Groups that are majority juniors/mixed groups will pick on Thursday, 4/20. Both evenings selection times will begin at 5:00pm.
  3. You can continue to monitor the Rooms Available List via Google Drive, which will be updated live as rooms are selected. You will see a suite or room be changed to font with a strikethrough line when that suite/room is taken.
  4. At your assigned time, you (as an individual) or at least one person from your group should report to the House Office to select your housing for next year.
    1. If you are currently away from campus on a Leave of Absence, or studying abroad, you can use this Zoom link to select your Housing, or identify a proxy Pfoho student to select your housing in your absence. If you anticipate doing either of these, please email me prior to April 17th. If neither of those options work for you, lets connect next week to determine next steps.
       

 

Rising sophomores will be asked to fill out an individual Rising Sophomore Housing Questionnaire via the StarRez portal, as well as a Sophomore Housing Preference Forms (just ONE per BLOCK) and will be assigned to rooms in late July/early August. Every effort will be made to meet your preferences and to keep roommates together. Room assignments will be emailed in mid-August.