The Office of Residence Life’s sophomore housing website stopped working around 5 p.m. March 25 during the first hour of sign-up day. The housing selection process has been rescheduled for April 9, associate director of ORL Sean Berthold said in an email to all freshman students on behalf of ORL.
The website stopped working because ORL disabled the link to resolve an issue between IT Services and the housing website vendor, Berthold said in a separate email. Before the housing sign-up process began, ORL was notified by students that rooms in Wild Commons were not appearing as options.
“With the addition of new residence hall spaces in Wild Commons and an updated system, there were a number of minor issues that, collectively, prevented students from obtaining rooms that their assignment time otherwise would have granted them,” the email to freshmen said.
Original sign-up times will be honored during the new sign-up date, Berthold said.
Danny Donahoe, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, said the housing website initially worked normally. At his designated 4:45 p.m. sign-up time, he signed up for a quad in Humphrey Hall with his future roommates and they received confirmation emails. When the website first stopped working, sign-ups were pushed back an hour, but were then moved to a different day.
“About five minutes after we had received our confirmation, (an email from ORL) told us that anyone who signed up between 4 and 5 would have to redo it entirely,” he said.
Donahoe’s 4:45 p.m. time would become a 5:45 p.m. time. However, when he went to log onto the housing website at 5:45 p.m., it still didn’t work.
“It didn’t even let me log in or get to the form,” he said. “When I try to, it just tells me my previous time, and it won’t let me do anything.”
Berthold said that after the sign-up process reopened, students continued experiencing issues signing up for rooms in Humphrey Hall despite a valid assignment time.
Patricia Soriano, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, said she had a similar experience to Donahoe. She signed up for housing during her 4:45 p.m. sign-up time, but only her roommate received a confirmation email.
“I didn’t (get a confirmation email), so I thought that was kind of weird,” she said. “We tried calling the ORL office, but they weren’t picking up.”
Then, just like Donahoe, she soon received an email that all sign-up times would be moved back an hour. But when she tried logging back on at 5:45 p.m., she could not sign up.
“The pop-up window would show up and it said my time was at 4:45, so that was kind of weird,” she said. “We went to the (ORL) office today and they told us they’re starting fresh, and no one’s going to be able to sign up today.”
Donahoe said he feels disgruntled and upset about the situation.
“We were pretty excited because Humphrey rooms run out fast, so we were just like, ‘Oh, we got it!’” he said. “And then this happens, and now we’re all kind of upset about it because we’re not sure if we’re going to get it the next time.”
Soriano said she was initially excited when the website worked, but became frustrated when she found out she will have to go through the housing sign-up process again.
“We might not even be able to get what we want (next time),” she said.
ORL said the new sign-up date “will allow Residence Life and IT Services enough time to perform appropriate testing of all aspects of the process to ensure that these issues do not occur again.”
