<p>I ended up calling for him, as he had other “pressing” commitments and I was not willing to allow this to go on any longer. They were very nice to me, and said they are <em>still</em> hand-matching kids to dorms and trying to get the kids into the dorms that they somewhat prefer, although the traditional freshman dorms are apparently essentially full.</p>
<p>(Fine with me. I am so not impressed with traditional freshman dorms, as my own personal university experience in the dino era, the freshman ghetto was known as the Jungle. With good reason.)</p>
<p>The woman I spoke with suggested that he update his housing survey to reflect any updated preferences that may have developed since orientation. Doing so won’t move him out of the queue and might help them place him with more satisfactory results.</p>
<p>The subtext is that they’ve done all the easy matching and are now trying to find out what’s left over. They do not expect to use hotels this year.</p>
<p>Glad to hear you got your questions answered. This is a stressful time of year with so many other details to handle. UW stopped trying to match according to surveys as they found as much compatibility with random matches. They also have a computerized housing lottery in May for new students- matching students to their highest ranked dorm as possible, thus eliminating the “first come, first served” policy of some other schools. Good news- it doesn’t matter if you applied in September or January, bad news- no assurances if you were the early bird. The important thing is communication of status- now you know he hasn’t fallen through some crack and was lost to the system.</p>
<p>I empathize with the mom’s need to know. My need to know thing typically exceeds my husband and sons’ need to know. Unfortunately for me, often they’re right that I was stressing about something that wasn’t a problem.</p>
<p>They are still stalling. With no information beyond: we are working on it. </p>
<p>I am seriously annoyed. Seems to me that this could have a big impact on their freshman retention rate --especially since my son has a transfer acceptance in hand for Fall 2011 (contingent on performance of course). </p>
<p>We are heading to Boston next Friday – eight days – without a specific destination beyond my H’s summer company outing that just happens to be in Boston that night!</p>
<p>My friend was in the identical position. Her son got his housing assignment less than a week ago. The mom told me she called the housing office a few times, then backed off.</p>
<p>I agree that if you still have not heard you should go up the line. I would start with an email this morning to the person/office you’ve been speaking to, copied to the dean of students or residential life or whatever they call it. I would say in the email that you’ve been trying to find out your sons placement for (whatever amount of time - 2 weeks?) and that you’ve been very patient but at this point, with school starting soon, your family going out of town for a family commitment, and your son needing to ship some cartons to his room you expect to hear from them with a definitive dorm placement by 3:00PM today. If you don’t that’s when you start calling (followed up by emails) everyone from the President of the college down. </p>
<p>I’m from NY - you’ve been extremely patient and, I think, rudely handled. You’re paying a lot of money (and even if you’re a full scholarship) and entrusting these people with your kid, you have a right to a real answer and a room placement. </p>
<p>My blood pressure is rising just typing this!</p>
<p>Your post about updating preferences made me wonder - did your S have some odd preference? Is it important to him? I never did get this roommate matching stuff beyond neat/sloppy, smoking/not, early/late, party/nerd and those are fairly common things on both sides. My own experience was that on paper my freshman year match up should have been good, but those intangibles are what made it pretty awful. If at this point your son just wants a room, have him update preferences to any room type thing or most basic info only. Then I would again contact the housing folks and basically insist on something.</p>
<p>Back in the day one of my friends got no room in the housing lottery for sophomore year. Most people then moved off campus at that point (like 99.9% that I knew of). She got her mom to call and insist on a single room for her and it did materialize. I don’t know how long it took etc., but I was impressed. My parents stopped calling on things for me in about 10th grade. I did learn how to do it myself, but I know that the housing folks basically did not care that much about inquiries from students at that time at that school.</p>
<p>Although if your son is not stressed, maybe you should take his lead. I realize that I can get OCD about my D’s stuff and that could be toxic to her, so I have to stifle myself quite a bit.</p>
<p>Yeah, this is ridiculous. I agreed with what oldfort had to say about kids not being listened to (I’ve said it before myself, and have witnessed it among peers that authority often doesn’t like to take those between 18-25 seriously).</p>
<p>It’s great that they’re trying to match on preference, if that’s really what they’re doing, but at this point it’s time to simply put the non-smokers with the people who prefer non-smokers and/or have asthma, and leave it at that. Other preferences can be worked around, and compromises can be made between the students; it’s only health issues that are most important at this point.</p>
<p>Are they saying then, that your son was being picky on his rooming preferences? When I filled mine out for Xavier, all I remember is it saying are you a smoker?, do you prefer to live with a non-smoker?, and pick one (names of the residence halls): Kuhlman/Husman, Brockman, Buenger.</p>
<p>I don’t remember getting into college and starting the first year of college being this difficult just a few years ago…</p>
<p>I don’t think he was picky. I did see his survey. They asked him to pick five dorms or types of dorms in order of preference. His first two choices encompassed about 3500 rooms. </p>
<p>Housing said to update his preferences based on his experience at orientation – since there were apparently no rooms left in the first two. Other than that, it’s the usual early/late, smoker/non etc.</p>
<p>I have tomorrow off. Today I am running the shop without my best go-to person, so tomorrow I can focus on this.</p>
<p>Unfortunately it is the squeaky wheel…and that’s a lesson for kids to learn too.</p>
<p>I am dealing with a situation with D2’s new school now. Her class schedule is all messed up (wrong level math/spanish, double booking of her classes), she is not happy with kids in her new school. She is only 16 and she tried to stop by to speak with her guidance counselor, and couldn’t get any time with her. I called this morning bright and early and told her that I expected to have D2 schedule fixed today, I expected the school to assign a buddy to show D2 around the school, and I expected the counselor to touch base with D2 every few days to make sure her transition is smooth, otherwise we are sending her to a new school. More importantly, I expected a status report by this afternoon. The counselor agreed to all.</p>
<p>I worked in NY, this type of treatment (to OP’s kid) is not acceptable. I get more upset when it’s happening to kids, not just to my own kids. Sometimes waiting is not an option when it comes to kids. Kids may appear not to care, but trust me, it matters to them where they live. Living arrangement has the biggest impact on someone’s college experience. The stress of moving from home and meeting new people, they do not need the stress of not knowing where they will be living. It’s unreasonable for the school to be so cavalier about it.</p>
<p>I would email this thread to the school and let them know what people think of the school. I did that few years back for a CC’er to AAA, and they responded within hours.</p>
<p>I hope this gets straightened out. It amazes me how some residence life/housing departments at some universities can be so disorganized and unwilling to actually take action. It’s unfortunate that you have been placed in this situation, and given the information on his preferences, it sounds like they’re just spewing bs at this point.</p>
<p>I’ve been trying very hard not to play the “we have choices and it’s time to vote with feet” card … but boy, that’s about how I feel. I am quite certain that one of the other choices he had in May would have a space and a bed.</p>
<p>Just reread my post about preferences. Actually, his first two choices encompassed 3500 <em>beds</em> not rooms … but you get the point. He asked for either of the two large freshmen complexes.</p>
<p>He just called me to tell me he got his room assignment … and while it’s a triple, I think it’s a good assignment. And he’s happy. Whew! (Put it this way … when we toured BU I said <em>I</em> wanted to live in this part of campus …)</p>