By Kyle Coombs

On March 24, nearly 80 upperclassmen who requested room draw numbers did not attend the rising junior and senior room draw, said Keith Edwards, the Director of Campus Life. This increased the number of open spaces for the rising sophomore draw on the 29th. Sophomores were given access to one Grand Cambridge Apartment, the Cottage at 63 Macalester Street, and five suites in George Draper Dayton Residence Hall, Operations Manager of Residential Life Kathy McEathron said.

This is a change from last year, said McEathron and Edwards, since juniors and seniors were put on a waiting list until all the sophomores had picked housing. This may have discouraged some upperclassmen from attending room draw, they said. Also, there was a spike in the number of upperclassmen who applied for specialty housing options like the language houses and Veggie Co-op, they said.

“Specialty housing had twice as many apply this year,” said Edwards.

Madeleine Benishek ’13, signed up to live in the new Interfaith House in Kirk Section 8. This is a new specialty housing option offered during the next year, she said, which guaranteed her housing as a junior.

“I [signed up] because I like to explore faith and the community we can build there,” she said, “but also being able to avoid room draw was a convenient side effect. I didn’t know if I’d get a room otherwise.”

Stephen Straub ’14 said that he was very happy with the way room draw worked out. As rising sophomores, he, Rohin Borpujari ’14, Juan Sebastian ’14, and Damian Loma ’14 chose to live in a Grand Cambridge Apartment.

Jake Waxman ’14 said that he was not as excited about the way room draw played out. He and his roommate, Ben Eagan ’14, had the number 3510 and were the last pair to pick a double, in Bigelow basement, he said.

“As a result, we are the only occupied room on that side of the basement,” Waxman said. “It is essentially us and the bathrooms.”

The main concern with empty rooms, Edwards said, is that this can to a loss of revenue for the college.

David Wheaton, Vice President for Administration and Finance, said that this coming year students and administration do not need to worry about the decrease in revenue. While upkeep costs like cleaning and repair work will still need to be provided to unoccupied spaces, he said, money is already budgeted in for this purpose.

“The fact that there are fewer students in halls won’t save us any money,” he said, “but I don’t think the students will notice any changes on campus due to the loss of revenue.