kryptonsa36

-Isn't- the way to achieve the "highest rate of satisfaction" just to do a plain, simple, "put whoever is next in line is his/her top, available choice"? Anything more than that just strikes me as having to double-guess how "satisfied" each student is with every "choice" he/she could get; i.e. someone who would hate being in anything less than his/her first choice vs. someone who would basically be content in any of his/her top four choices becomes a factor.

Though I suppose if they're going to be so wordy so as to describe what they do as an "algorithm," then perhaps there is something more complicated than a natural lottery behind the scenes.

cheersfan

Kryptonsa: I agree -- with both your points.

molliebatmit

I think the way to achieve the highest rate of satisfaction would be to minimize the total choice sum -- i.e. if everybody got put in his/her first choice, the choice sum would be ~1000, if everybody got put in his/her second choice, the sum would be ~2000.

I mean, that's not necessarily true, but it's all the information they have to go on.

It might be interesting to see a lottery where freshmen could assign weights to their choices.

k4r3n2

Another thought:

Maybe they fill the dorms with all of the kids that ranked it as their first choice (if there isn't enough space, they pick kids randomly), and then go to filling dorms with their second choices, then third choices etc. etc. So maybe if you get put in your 5th choice, you had bad luck and didn't get into your 1st choice dorm, and then 2-4 were filled up with kids that had it as their first choice dorms.

rainynightstarz

I had something in mind that is more like what mollie described.
Maybe they first look at everyone's top choices, calculates through possible combinations, the pick the combination where the sum of the choice is the least?
Except any one to put RBA in top 4 fill those first.

cheersfan

Apparently it's far from a straight up lottery and it's constantly being tweaked. If I had to guess, the algorithm maximizes the number who get their top 2 or 3 choices, consistent with filling all dorms. This is from a 2001 RIST meeting proposing changes:

"Some notes on the lottery algorithm

Broadly speaking, there are two basic strategies one might take to running the lottery: call them filling up dorms, or satisfying preferences. The Filling Up Dorms strategy begins, predictably, with the first dorm in some predecided order and filling up all its available slots with people who identified it as their first preference; conflicts are decided by some form of random selection process. Those people who do not succeed in getting their first choice are returned to the candidate pool, and the process goes to the next dorm. Many variations on this theme are possible, but that's the basic idea. The Satisfying Preferences strategy begins by looking at the people's various preferences and trying to best accommodate those in the available residence spaces. It is important, for both strategies, to have quantitative means to decide which of two competing results is the better one.

The Filling Up Dorms (by lottery and then preference) strategy has the virtue of being relatively straight forward and computationally light. (There is some evidence that this method resides in the current black box.) But it has the drawback of compounding lottery losses by the unlucky, making the unlucky increasing unlucky, and widening the disparity between those who are lucky early and those who are unlucky late. This is less fair than certain alternatives.

The Satisfying Preferences strategy seems the more logical approach, given the lottery's goals, anyhow. It has the virtue of being more fair than the FIlling Up Dorms strategy -- it is unlikely to compound lottery losses -- and it is flexible enough to accommodate the sorts of tweaks and changes that Denise needs to be able to make (during the actual running of the Housing Selection Lottery and for the execution of the other lotteries, the Orientation Adjustment Lottery and the spring and fall lotteries). The Filling Up Dorms approach could also satisfy these requirements, but with greater rewriting and at some cost, once again, to its fairness. The Satisfying Preferences strategy is, however, more complicated and computationally heavy than some of its rivals.

One Preference Satisfying approach is to use a monte carlo style algorithm to arrive at some equilibrium state which can be tweaked depending on how the algorithm is weighted. In the summer, the weighting -- say, whether to maximize 1st and 2nd choices, or to minimize 5th and 6th choices, or whatever -- can be fiddled with between runs in order to produce the best result. (How exactly to measure the 'best' result needs a little thought, but at first glance, anyway, a the old preference/value system seems like a good start.) In the Orientation Adjustment Lottery (and the Spring lottery) it makes some sense to maximize on people's 1st and 2nd choices given that, at worst, they ought to be in at least their 4th or 5th choice as a result of the origina Housing Selection Lottery already. "

LauraN

Yeah, it's definitely more complicated than just giving as many people as possible their first choice, they want to give everyone the highest choice they can, which is quite a bit more complicated.

And really, there's enough of a range of personalities across campus that I can't imagine anyone truly hating all but one dorm. Obviously you might have your heart set on one or another, but I guarantee there are others similar enough to make you happy. This past year there was a frosh who was really disappointed to not be placed in BC, he asked me a million questions about how he could get on the list to transfer. Meanwhile he was placed into what I consider one of the coolest halls on EC, and I spent weeks trying to convince him to spend some time there instead of unofficially moving into my floor lounge. Once he finally gave it a chance, he realized he loved it. Sure, maybe somewhere deep down he would still rather live in BC, but really, he's more than happy in EC now that he's gotten to know it better. Just for an example. =)

carmel

re:laura-- hahaha, good old H.B. is still the froshiest frosh who ever did frosh, but we are fond of him on 2w. i'm glad he stayed in the end.

LauraN

The thing about frosh, is that most of them (eventually) defrosh....

And I tried so hard not to give away the hall I was referring to! Haha.

iPutSTUDinStudy

Does Baker have TV's in the common area on every floor? Or at all? I can't remember from CPW...