Input your lottery number and point value into the widget below, and it will display our best guesses regarding how many of each room type will be available at your selection time. More »

Alright, you guys have waited long enough, it’s time for some hard-core lottery number analysis. However, if you haven’t already seen it, first check out Mikey Zhong’s fantastic overview post from earlier this week—it’s got a ton of useful data and tidbits.

Keep in mind that everything we say assumes that no suites are held out by Housing. Of course, that’s not going to happen—they hold out suites every single year without warning. However, there’s no way to know which ones they’re going to choose, so you’ll have to prepare a backup if you’re anywhere near our projected cutoffs.

30-Point Groups

Six-person groups: There are 41 such groups this year, just 3 fewer than last time, so things should shake out just about the same. We’ll start with the Hogan penthouse suite, which was snatched early last year but was around for much longer the year before that. We suspect that it will be gone before 30/500, but that’s anyone’s guess.

Next, there are the all-single suites along the -02 line of the EC Highrise. They could theoretically be gone as soon as 30/476, but there will almost certainly be a group or two that prefers a townhouse to a highrise suite, suggesting a cutoff somewhere between 30/668 and 30/893. As soon as those have been finished off, it will be a steady stream of all-single townhouses.

To be guaranteed a six-person suite without a double, you’ll need to be one of the first 29 30 six-person groups to pick—that’s anyone with a lottery number better than 1894 or equal to 1927. The groups at 30/1927 and 30/1973 can hope that someone decides to drop but anyone after that is going to be out of luck.

Those who miss out on an all-single suite will be forced to choose between dropping to Online Selection or Regroup and one of the 6 townhouses with a double. Last year, none of the groups who had that choice decided to drop, but it seems unlikely that the same will occur this year.

Therefore, a cutoff of 30/2624 seems like a reasonable bet, plus or minus a group or two. The remaining groups could consider picking into Ruggles or Claremont, but will probably elect to drop down instead.

Five-person groups: Last year, there was a slight dip in the popularity of these groups, but they’re back to their 2011 levels, with 49 groups of five seniors. With 17 all-single suites between the EC Highrise and Hogan available, the final one could be taken by 30/1176. However, for the last couple of years, the EC suites have outpaced the Hogan five-person suites in popularity.

This means that there are likely to be a handful of groups (approximately five) whose only opportunity to live in EC will be to deal with a double and select an Exclusion suite. If some choose this option, the all-single cutoff could go a bit past the absolute minimum, so the groups at 30/1200 and even 30/1257 have reason to hope.

Either way, there will be about 30 groups who have to choose between Regroup/Online and an EC Exclusion suite. In each of the last two years, about 80% of the groups faced with this dilemma have opted for the Exclusion suite. If that holds, about 26 of the 56 Exclusion Suites will be gone before Senior Regroup even begins. That should cover the entirety of the 16th and 18th floors along with most of the 14th floor.

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Within the last day or two, Housing updated their version of the cutoff history. If you compare their numbers to the ones we posted a couple weeks back, you’ll notice a number of discrepancies. In some instances, there’s just a minute difference in the lottery number—we’re not too concerned about those. However, there are a number of cases in which Housing’s number may be technically correct, but we believe that our number is actually more informative. We’ll run through the major inconsistencies and explain where they came from.

Broadway Singles (The Shaft: 20/676, Housing: 20/1353)
Our number here involved a bit of guesswork, but there’s no way that Broadway was available to juniors with such a high lottery number. What may have occurred is that whoever had 20/1353 was able to transfer into Broadway (either over the summer or during the school year) but Housing lost track of that, and assumed that he or she picked in during General Selection.

EC Four-Person Townhouses (The Shaft: 30/908, Housing: 30/1468)
We know that 30/1468 initially picked into a Claremont four-person suite because they had no other options. They must have transferred into EC at some point.

Hogan Four-Person Suites (The Shaft: 30/1205, Housing: 30/2001)
30/2001 was a group of two that filled two of the empty beds in an RA suite. So technically they did get to live in a four-person Hogan suite, but that’s irrelevant for groups deciding on a strategy for this year.

Nussbaum Singles (The Shaft: 20/71, Housing: 20/724)
This is the same situation as the Broadway singles.

Ruggles Six-Person Suites and Watt Studio Doubles
Housing assigns a specific lottery number to these cutoffs. These were the final groups to pick in before Junior Regroup, but the final one of each room type was actually taken during Regroup itself.

Wien Singles
While the cutoff we came up with was similar to Housing’s, it’s pretty deceptive. Most of the singles in Wien were gone before the sophomores were able to start picking. The only reason the cutoff is technically so late is because the 3rd floor is female-only.

Housing registration is nearly upon us, so it’s time to finalize your plans for Room Selection. Hopefully you’ve used our slideshow and last year’s cutoffs to zero in on a couple of possibilities. This post should fill in any gaps that remain, giving you everything you need to make a final decision. We’ll give guidance regarding the safe options, where the risks lie, and what your backups may be.

A few notes before we begin:
1) When we talk about sophomores, juniors, or seniors, we’re really talking about rising sophomores, rising juniors, or rising seniors. Those new to the Housing process should get used to this terminology.
2) Don’t forget that Suite Selection is now called In-Person Group Selection and General Selection has been replaced by Online Selection.
3) While Housing is always difficult to predict with any degree of precision, Online Selection is particularly fickle. We’ll do our best to mention whatever we do know about singles throughout the preview.

Again, if you don’t want to read through the whole post and are confused about what’s relevant to you, take a look at the slideshow and then continue below for more details:

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If you’re a first-year, our tutorial post should have you well on your way towards forming your group for Housing registration next week. However, the options are more complicated if you’re a rising junior or senior. With 15 different buildings and more than 40 types of rooms from which to choose, settling on your best strategy can be a bit of challenge. To help you think things through, we proudly present our Housing Options Slideshow:

Two quick notes: (1) When we list a cutoff, that’s the cutoff from last year, not necessarily a prediction for this year. We’ll have a post upcoming which will go even further in depth, listing what we project for each type of room for this year. (2) Although we think we’ve covered most of the possibilities, we’ve left out a few edge cases to simplify things a bit. Give us a shout in the comments section if you need further guidance.

Happy Housing!

(tl;dr—Make a group of 2, 4, 6, or 8 rising sophomores and you can all pick doubles together. You’ll probably end up in Broadway, McBain, Nussbaum, Schapiro, or Wien.)

If you’re a Columbia first-year and confused about how this whole Housing thing works, you’ve come to the right place. This post contains everything you need to know about the Room Selection Process.

The Basics

The Room Selection process has two separate rounds. In-Person Group Selection, known until this year as Suite Selection, is when all suites and doubles are selected. Online Selection (previously known as General Selection), which occurs a week later, is when people can pick into singles. Each group in In-Person Group Selection has a point value and a lottery number. The group’s point value is simply the average of its members’ point values with rising seniors worth 30, rising juniors worth 20, and rising sophomores (you guys!) worth 10. The lottery number is a random number between 1 and 3000 and is completely independent of the point value. Having a bigger group doesn’t help or hurt your number since a number is assigned to the group as a whole and not each individual. More »

One of the most valuable pieces of information you’ll want when deciding on a strategy for Housing is the cutoff history.

The Housing website has the numbers from each of the previous four years, but they’re not likely to post last year’s numbers until a bit closer to registration.

We’re here to beat them to the punch, with our own estimated cutoffs. (For the uninitiated, the cutoff history lists the point value and lottery number of the final group to choose each type of room last year.)

A couple caveats though. First, the easiest mistake to make in Housing is relying too much on the previous year’s cutoff history. We’ll be back with a full preview of the outlook for this year where we’ll be sure to highlight any misleading cutoffs.

For now though, look at the few most recent cutoffs to see if you can spot any suspicious trends. Second, some of these are just rough estimates so if something looks wrong to you, it probably is — please let us know in the comments. Finally, these numbers exclude RA suites which are nearly impossible to predict anyway.

Without further ado, you’ll find the cutoffs after the jump. More »