Every year, something which Director of ResLife Fran Koerting can only describe as “bizarre” happens during General Room Selection (GRS). This spring, partly because a total of 80 students inexplicably did not participate in the process, everybody in the rising class of sophomores and juniors were able to get housing during GRS.

“We typically don’t have that happen,” explained Koerting, referring to the high number of students who did not participate during GRS. “Either they didn’t form a group during GRS and didn’t get a rank and weren’t able to participate, or these could be people who aren’t going to be here in the fall. Maybe some just didn’t know the process. They still need be housed, but everyone who participated got housing.”

Koerting said that because the selection process went so smoothly, nobody in the rising sophomore or junior class received point adjustments for GRS next year.

“Everybody has housing,” Koer-ting said. “There’s only a handful of sophomores, about 20, who formed groups of one who wanted single rooms and didn’t get them.”

In a trend continuing from last year, juniors continued selecting alternative housing options over Low Rise and High Rise, consequently allowing several rising sophomores to select High Rise apartments. Most popular among the rising junior class were the Hewitt dorms and, curiously, Butt B. By the third night of room selection on Wednesday, April 28, all but two rooms in Butt B had been picked over available spaces in High Rise and Low Rise.

Koerting attributed this phenomenon to the availability of kitchen and laundry facilities in these spaces.

“There’s a lot of other housing options that are still appealing to the junior class besides High Rise and Low Rise,” she said. “In Hewitt, you have a kitchen, you have a common area, it’s close to Usdan…”

The point adjustment system allows for students with a low housing number to have a higher pick the following year. ResLife created the system after over 100 students were left without housing in fall 2006, as a result of a lower number of juniors going abroad than expected and a higher number of incoming freshmen choosing to enroll.

However, this year the only people who will end up receiving adjusted housing points will be any incoming freshmen placed in triples, or any rising juniors going abroad next fall who already have extra points carrying over from the previous year.

“We can’t guess if there’ll be triples next year, not until we know the size of the freshman class,” Koerting said.

Because the deadline for high school seniors to commit to enrolling at Wesleyan is May 1st, it will still take a few days for ResLife to process how big the class of 2012 will be exactly. In order to accommodate the larger-than-expected frosh class in fall 2006, ResLife was forced to place 66 students in 22 triples.

Likewise, in fall 2007, 26 triples housed 78 frosh, because 65 students had been left without housing.

Of the current 80 students without housing, ResLife expects that some of these students will choose not to enroll at the University in the fall. The rest will be placed on a waitlist, but retain the option of applying to off-campus housing if they want.

“Usually students need to apply by February in order to go off campus,” Koerting said. “These are people who meet specific criteria “ they’re over twenty-five, they’re married with kids, they have certain medical needs that can’t be met by living on campus. This year we had less than five people who met that criteria. Everyone else gets placed on a waitlist after applying in February… if we exhaust that list and we can still accommodate people who want to live off campus, then we send out an all campus e-mail to rising juniors and seniors asking if they want that option.”

The rising seniors also had several new houses to pick from, among the usual group of woodframes. One 15 person unit ” that is, three 5-person prototypes houses attached together “ is currently being built at 231 Pine, with another 15 person unit currently under construction at 19 Fountain. 172 and 166 Cross are another two brand new houses formerly inhabited mainly by graduates, but will now be turned into senior housing.

Meanwhile, 184 and 186 Washington, 21 Miles and 4 Huber Manor will be going up for sale, as part of an ongoing plan to centralize the campus over the next 10 years by relocating certain facilities closer to campus.

“The number of woodframes is not getting reduced,” Koerting said. “Whenever we can, we try to increase it.”