It takes about a year to 1.5 to get off the coop waitlist unless you’re EOP.
You look for housing in April. If it’s 900$ or more for a double, you messed up and looked too soon. You look on Facebook for housing. Find out the total cost of the apartment so it’s easier to compare prices and know what you’re stuck with if everyone else in the apartment moves out and you have to figure out how hard it’ll be to find new people. Also, figure out maximum people supposed to be living there. But if they don’t have the answers, get the apartment anyways because someone else will swoop it if you take too long contemplating.
On campus housing: the real issue with sophomore on campus housing or above is that they start only giving them options of, say a 16,000$ apartment with food not included, several blocks from campus, which is on balance, more expensive than you were paying for a dorm room with food. That’s why we move off campus. Other places they stick sophomores include 17,000$ in Blackwell or the Units (if you’re lucky). The real lack of upper class housing is reasonably priced on-campus apartments, of which there aren’t many options. If you want to stay in a triple, it’s pretty doable though they might put you in a double, which is more expensive.
I was in a triple in Clark Kerr, then a double apartment in Clark Kerr (reasonable), and then they offered me the annoying 16000$ apartment, so I moved off campus, and I’m paying a bit under 800$ a month including utilities for a double half a block from campus (looked in May actually). The total cost is 2895$ for a two bedroom, and the maximum official capacity is 3 people. That third person for a single was very hard to find.