SY Housing Rules 2016

Saybrook College Housing Rules

 I. General Information

Housing in Saybrook is determined by a lottery system that acknowledges seniority while sustaining the requirement, as well as the guarantee, that all sophomores live on campus. Rising sophomores, for whom the 12-person suite and all sextets are reserved, choose their housing first according to these parameters, followed by rising seniors and then rising juniors. Because, unlike rising seniors and juniors, rising sophomores are required to occupy and therefore guaranteed to receive on-campus housing, the housing committee removes enough non-sextet suites from the stock of available housing to accommodate them should their numbers exceed or not match the number of beds available through sextets and the 12-person suite alone.

Each class enters a separate lottery to determine the order in which people choose their suites.   The housing process typically begins after spring break, with both online and in-person components.  Online, students can find general information, the housing rules (this document), a list of housing committee members, a calendar of important dates, floor plans, the list of available suites per type of suite, a list featuring the order in which each suite was picked in the previous year, the link through which groups create applications for suites, and the running list of responses from those groups who have created applications for suites. In person, students participate in lotteries and room draws.

Acceleration plays no role in the housing process. For the purposes of housing, students who have accelerated should consider themselves members of the same class with which they began their lives at Yale. Clipping is permitted, through which two suites of the same configuration may join their applications to receive consecutive lottery numbers. Mixed-class suites are allowed, but they must enter the lotteries of their lowest-ranking members (therefore, a rising junior and a rising senior in a double must draw with the rising juniors).  A student may enter the rising senior lottery only once.  Mixed-gender suites are allowed for sophomores, juniors, and seniors.  However, the following rules apply: each bedroom within a suite must be single-sex (a male and a female may not occupy a double bedroom, but they can elect to live in separate bedrooms within a suite); no student will be assigned to a mixed-gender suite against his or her will; mixed-gender housing groups will get no advantage or disadvantage in the housing selection process (if they are not able to select a suite that can accommodate them, they may need to break into different groups that may or may not be mixed-gender); and students in intimate relationships are strongly discouraged from entering into a shared-suite arrangement. To reconcile these policies with the realities of suite floor plans and the vicissitudes of a lottery-based system, rising sophomores applying for sextets are required to be comprised of either all of one gender (all males or all females) or males and females of even numbers (i.e., two males and four females or four males and two females).  For the 12-person suite, which features two single bedrooms, it can be known in advance for those groups applying specifically for that suite how they must be constituted to meet the terms of these policies.

All students living in Saybrook are asked to make their suites available for visitors during designated Open Houses. While the Open Houses are not mandatory, participation allows all students to become familiar with the housing options available to them.  These occur in-between lotteries and room draws on the day of the rising sophomore sextet lottery/room draw, which occurs on a Wednesday, and on the first day of the rising senior lottery/room draw as well as the first day of the rising junior lottery/room draw, which are scheduled on consecutive Fridays.  An exception to the Friday scheduling of these events occurs when a Yale College staff holiday recognizes Good Friday, which often falls during the housing process; when this happens, events ordinarily scheduled for a Friday occur on the immediately-preceding Thursday.

II. Lotteries and Room Draws

Lotteries determine the order in which students select suites. Room draws determine suite assignments.  The Housing Committee expects and encourages pleasant collegiality during these events.

Rising sophomores are housed in the 12-person suite, sextets, and – if necessary – a few non-sextet suites.  For the rising sophomores, there is a simultaneous lottery/room draw for the 12-person suite at 5:15 p.m. on the Wednesday initiating the housing process.  For all sextets, there is a rising sophomore lottery at 5:30 p.m. and a room draw at 10 p.m. on that same day.  For this reason, those applying for the 12-person suite should come to that lottery/room draw prepared to separate into groups of six to participate in the sextet lottery if they do not secure the 12-person suite. For rising sophomores who do not finalize housing on this day because they constitute a remainder of some kind – the number of groups exceeds the number of sextets and/or the total number of rising sophomore males and females is not divisible by six – the remaining students must reconfigure into groups for placement into non-sextet housing and notify the Dean and the Dean’s Administrative Assistant by no later than 5 p.m. on the next day – Thursday.  They will receive notification of their assigned suite configurations by 5 p.m. on the day after that – Friday.

Note:  As all sophomores are required and guaranteed to have on campus housing, they may be placed into suite configurations they do not request, although all single-gender preferences will and must be respected.

Rising seniors and juniors may enter lotteries for singles, doubles, triples, quads, quints, and – only if available after all sophomores have already been housed – sextets. The 12-person suite is reserved solely for sophomores.  For both the rising seniors and the rising juniors, there is a lottery and room draw for each suite type for each of three days [Friday (or Thursday, in a week that includes the staff holiday of Good Friday), Monday, and Tuesday].  First, rising seniors participate in a lottery/room draw on the Friday after the rising sophomore sextet lottery/room draw, with the lottery scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and the room draw scheduled for 10 p.m.  Those who wish to or must withdraw their suite application before entering that day’s room draw reconfigure to enter the second iteration of the rising senior lottery/room draw scheduled for the following Monday.  Those who wish to or must withdraw their suite application before entering Monday’s room draw reconfigure to enter the third iteration of the rising senior lottery/room draw scheduled for the next day, Tuesday.  Successive iterations of the lottery/room draw process accommodate any changes that need to be made for students’ configurations as housing stock depletes.  This process is mirrored for rising juniors beginning that Friday.

A. Who should enter the lottery

Students who plan to live in Saybrook next year – either for the full year or the fall term only – should enter the lottery. Students who know that they will not be occupying housing in the fall should NOT enter the lottery. If you plan in the fall to take a Leave of Absence, withdraw, go on a Junior Term or Year Abroad, or attend Yale-in-London, then see the section at the end of this document, Special Situations.

Acceptance of a suite constitutes a contract for that suite. If you later relinquish housing, you will be subject to a financial penalty equivalent to one quarter of the room charge for the fall term. See also the note on ghosting. Furthermore, the housing committee reserves the right to fill beds that become empty throughout the academic year, including at the beginning of the fall semester.

Note: The lottery for the 12-person suite constitutes a simultaneous room draw for this suite. A group selected by this lottery to live in this suite is contractually bound to this suite. Students entering a lottery for such a suite, therefore, should consider that this act constitutes the same verbal contract as choosing a suite in a traditional room draw.

B. Submitting lottery applications

In order to participate in a lottery in any of the categories of suites, you must submit an application for your desired type of suite. On the application form, you must specify the suite type and provide the full names (first and last) of all persons who will occupy that suite. Completed applications – with the number of group members matching the number of beds available in a desired suite type – must be finalized by no later than 4 p.m. on the day of the corresponding lottery/room draw. A housing application is considered incomplete and ineligible for that night’s lottery/room draw if there are fewer group members than available beds for the desired suite type.  Such applications will be omitted from that day’s lottery/room draw and group members are expected to reconfigure to appropriate suite types for the next day’s lottery/room draw.

Late Applications:

Applications submitted after 4 p.m. on the day of a lottery will be omitted from that day’s lottery and used for the next day’s lottery.

Note: Please be considerate of others if you suspect you may have to withdraw from a suite between the time of the lottery and when room draw takes place (e.g. if you finalize pending plans to be away for the fall term or the full year or if you are thinking about living off campus). If you enter the lottery with someone else and then back out before room draw, the remaining people will lose their place in the process for whatever room type they then wish to secure.

C. How the lotteries are conducted

The housing committee conducts the lottery in person in the Common Room – at 5:15 p.m. for the 12-person suite and at 5:30 p.m. for all other lotteries – and posts the results online. You do not have to be present at the lottery.

When the lotteries for each of the suite types for a given class have taken place, the lists of all categories will be prepared by the housing committee and the results will be posted online.

D.  Room draw

The second stage in the housing process is room draw, when you choose your suite for next year. All room draws take place in the Saybrook Common Room at 10 p.m. on the same night as the lottery, with the exception of the simultaneous lottery/room draw at 5:15 p.m. for the 12-person suite. A representative from each suite application must be present at room draw with the following information for each member of his/her proposed suite:  first name, last name, SID#, year of graduation, and bedroom selection with the suite.

E. How the room draws are conducted

At room draw, the housing committee proceeds down the lists that resulted from the lotteries. As the names are called out, groups must indicate which suite they wish to choose. By picking a suite, you bind yourself to that suite by contract and you may not undo the draw. It is in your interest, therefore, to come to the room draw well-prepared with a good understanding and relative ranking of all of the suites for which you likely will be eligible. You and your group will have no more than three minutes to confer before you must indicate to the housing committee the suite you wish to choose. The picking of a suite constitutes a contract for that suite. To be accurate, then, at the time a suite is selected, you are required to say the selected suite number twice to finalize the suite selection, activate the housing contract, and confirm the housing assignment for next year.  You must also select bedrooms at this time.

F. Remaining suites

In the event that, after all housing draws have been conducted, there remain one or more empty suites in Saybrook College, these suites will be made available for assignment by the Dean to students without other housing.

III. Technical Information

Special Situations

Two categories of students often present particular questions: students who take a Leave of Absence or withdraw and students who do Yale-in-London or a Junior Term Abroad.

Leaves of Absence and Withdrawals

Unaccelerated students who take a one-term Leave of Absence or withdraw before their senior year are behind their classmates. Nevertheless they may draw with their rising senior classmates. If they do so and occupy senior housing in the next year, they forfeit their right to draw as seniors in the following year. On the other hand, students who take a one-term Leave of Absence during the spring term of their senior year are permitted to draw as seniors again for housing in their eighth and final semester, because they have occupied only one term of senior housing. NO STUDENT MAY OCCUPY SENIOR HOUSING FOR MORE THAN TWO SEMESTERS.

Students returning from a Leave of Absence or a withdrawal after completing only two terms of enrollment pose additional questions. They, too, are behind their original classmates, but they may not advance voluntarily to the same housing their peers have. As rising sophomores, they must reside in sophomore housing if it is available. As with all other returning students, they should notify the Dean in writing of their intention to return to Yale and at that time request housing.  Students returning from a Leave of Absence may select a suite with the other rising sophomores or ask the Dean to place them in available housing. Students who return from a withdrawal must ask the Dean to place them in available housing.  If a sophomore sextet is incomplete, the Dean may, at his/her discretion, place the returning student in that sextet. The Dean also has the option of placing him/her in a suite with rising juniors or seniors if someone has vacated the suite. In such a situation, neither the returning student nor his/her roommates will be penalized in any way, and particularly in no way that affects those students’ future housing seniority.

Junior Term Abroad and Yale-in-London

Students who plan to take a Junior Term Abroad or a Yale-in-London term in the spring term of their junior year may draw for a Saybrook suite for the fall term. After informing the Dean’s office in writing of their confirmed plans for the spring term, they simply vacate their suite in mid-year with no penalty. (Such students should consult the Yale College Programs of Study for the deadline to relinquish spring-term housing.) On the other hand, students who plan to take a Junior Term Abroad or a Yale-in-London term in the fall term, should NOT secure housing. Such students who are abroad in the fall who wish to have on-campus housing for the spring should contact the Dean’s office as soon as possible to request in writing on-campus housing. Such students are not guaranteed housing; they are eligible for whatever housing becomes available at mid-year, but, historically, the chances for good on-campus housing at mid-year are very good. (If you are in such a category and you know someone in Saybrook who would be willing to share a suite with you, please inform the Dean’s office of that fact as well.)

Sophomore Non-Sextets

*No sophomores shall live in singles or triples. If the remainder for a given gender is equal to 1 or 3, sophomores will live in one fewer than the maximum number of sextets, with additional suite sizes as indicated.

Although a specific number of sextets (and other suite sizes, if necessary) will be apportioned for rising sophomores, specific suites will not be reserved. If the number of sextets apportioned for sophomore housing is less than the total number of sextets, the remaining number of sextets will be available to rising seniors and juniors, who will be able to draw a number of sextets equal to: total # of sextets – sophomore sextets. Room draw will still proceed according to seniority, with first rising seniors and then rising juniors being able to draw sextets in their respective room draws until this number is reached.

Relinquishing On-Campus Housing

Each year many students choose to live off campus. A student who participates in room draw in the spring but who, through a letter to the Dean, later relinquishes the suite s/he has accepted should be aware of the following:

1. A student who has contracted for a suite but who notifies the Dean in writing on or before the first day of the term of an intention to relinquish that suite will be charged a non-refundable deposit of one quarter (25%) of the term room rent.

2. A student who has contracted for a suite but who notifies the Dean in writing on or before the tenth day of the term of an intention to relinquish that suite will be charged a non-refundable deposit of one quarter (25%) of the term room rent plus the per diem housing charge for each day up to and including the day on which the student relinquishes the suite.

Again, the Housing Committee reserves the right to fill beds that become empty throughout the academic year, including at the beginning of the fall semester.