As Columbia University’s most recent class of first-years has just learned, coming to college is scary. Knowing that you’ll probably spend the year living in a room with one random person you’ve never met doesn’t help.

So imagine how rough it must be for the 50-odd Barnard first-years who are living with not one, but two and even three other random roommates because, well, Barnard admissions goofed. Again.

Somehow or another, Barnard admissions seriously miscalculated its yield rate, the percentage of admitted students who actually choose to attend the school.

As a result, the first-year class comes to a whopping 575 students (that’s 21 more than last year), marking the biggest increase in Barnard’s first-year class since 2003. After the jump in 2003, Barnard’s admissions rate fell considerably, by four percent, but this had little effect on their yield rate. This year has proven even worse—not only did the admissions rate remain the same, the yield rate grew. A high yield rate is fantastic in theory. But, since Barnard’s First-Year Focus program requires all Barnard first-years to be housed in the Quad, admissions’ miscalculation has taken a hefty toll on ResLife.

In order to fit all the first-years into the Quad, ResLife has been forced to convert five floor lounges into triples and quads (three and two, respectively), limiting kitchen space on all those floors. In addition to converting the lounges, ResLife created three triples on the eighth floor of Hewitt, which, albeit in the Quad, is not one of the traditional first-year dorms.

The strain of extra first-years comes on top of what is already a housing shortage at Barnard. In anticipation of building plans for the Nexus, the Board of Trustees recently voted to move several Macintosh offices to the first floor of Elliot Hall, eliminating all student housing on that floor. Due to financial constraints, ResLife did not renew its lease at the 104th Street dorms, sacrificing another 21 spaces.

Admissions’ miscalculation has put an unnecessary strain on Barnard ResLife. It creates difficult situations for the numerous first-years crammed into triples and quads, makes roommate-swapping difficult, if not impossible, for first-years and upperclassmen alike, and places all the students on the guaranteed waiting list in unsatisfactory living situations…