Gender topics: Open Housing and the ‘pull-in’ (BC@CU, CU@BC)
Presented in a Q&A format. It’s a Shaft production.
What is Open Housing?
In short, it’s where males and females are allowed to live together in doubles.
It’s pretty simple. The only caveat to remember is that Open Housing is only effective in Suite Selection, and not in General Selection.
So, which dorms can you pick into Open Housing this year?
Every single dorm not called Furnald, Hartley, or Wallach. Last year, Open Housing was restricted to Claremont, Ruggles, Woodbridge, East Campus, and Nussbaum. This year, Open Housing will be available for all upperclassman dorms (though again, only in Suite Selection).
How will this affect the lottery?
The lottery actually won’t be affected all that much with Open Housing being offered to all upperclassmen dorms. The only big difference this year is that it’ll be easier for sophomores in groups to utilize Sophomore Pair-Up (again, sophomores: PICK EVEN-NUMBERED GROUPS).
In the past, if you had a group of sayyy four, with three girls and one guy, when it came down to utilize sophomore pair-up, two of the girls would get to pair up, but the left-out girl and guy would be forced to drop down to the dooms of General Selection. Now, with Open Housing, the otherwise left-out girl and guy can pair-up.
Is Open Housing great?
Yeah, it’s great.
—————————–…and here’s the Pull-In———————————–
Living at Columbia as a Barnard student
This situation is somewhat complicated. Quick teaser: unless you’re a senior in an all-senior group, don’t count on getting in.
Living at Barnard as a Columbia student
This situation isn’t too complicated.
So there’s no way I’ll get to live in EC next year as a rising junior?
Doesn’t look too likely. As the Housing website explains, “the point value of any Barnard student who joins a group of Columbia students must be greater than or equal to the lowest point value among the Columbia students within that group.”
That means any group you would be in would have to include at least one Columbia junior. Since that group’s point value would be below 30, as the flipbook explains, it would be unlikely to survive past the cap.
If we have five seniors, four CC and one BC, what are the odds of slipping under the cap? Is there any historical way of predicting this? Are the old caps available on the housing website? A friend told me the cutoffs were 30/1330, 30/1466, and 30/1426, but I have no idea where she got these numbers and she can’t remember.
Thank you so much for the work you put in on this!
Old caps aren’t available on the site. The cap last year was hit at 30/2700, and while it’s possible that the cap has hit 30/1466 over the last few years (it probably has), it usually happens somewhere from 30/2000 to 30/3000 according to Housing. Thanks for reading!
“If you’re a senior or a junior, you have to regroup or drop down to general (probably… there’s a chance regroup won’t even be an option)”
Can you clarify what this means? Why wouldn’t regroup be an option?
Housing just confirmed that Regroup will not be an option. So if you’re an all-junior group which happens to include a Barnard student, and you hit the cap, then you’re forced to drop down to General. Not sure why the policy is set up like that, but those are the rules.