Caution: It is known that these rules are not the actual rules that have been incorporated into Burton-Conner bylaws. These are being posted to provide a general idea of the rooming policy. They cannot be used to extensively provide proof of error in matters where ExecComm, JudComm, or the Rooming Chairs have made rulings contrary to what is written here. In particular, Phil Bernard, in cooperation with the House Officers, has issued a new policy for assigning freshmen to rooms, which completely destroys the model of the Crowding Grid in these rules.

Here are the guidelines that the Rooming Chairs are to follow when assigning freshmen to floors after in-house rush. These are the new rules that are mentioned in the previous sections. This section overrules any other rules that may be posted further down on this page. If you suspect that freshmen have been assigned incorrectly, please contact the Rooming Chairs and the House Officers (bc-rooming@mit.edu, bc-officers@mit.edu).

The Burton-Conner Housing Crowding Grid was developed in the Spring / Summer of 2000 to more accurately and evenly distributes crowds within Burton-Conner.

This crowding procedure should be flexible in such a way that the crowds on individual floors can be moved from one suite to another depending on upperclassmen assignments from the previous Spring Semester, yet there remain some predictable outcomes that upperclassmen can choose from.

Though it appears to be complicated at first, the BC Officers for 2000 ultimately chose this approach due to 3 major factors:

These rules give strong preference to upperclassmen over incoming freshmen in terms of crowding order. Within the context of giving preference to each group, these rules also maintain the maximum attainable balance in number of residents between all floors in the dorm.

These rules are very orderly and predictable so that crowding can be predicted not only by the Burton-Conner rooming chairs but also by anyone. This allows people in the dorm to make crucial rooming decisions in the Spring based on reasonable expectations of which rooms will probably be crowded.

Incoming Freshmen rooming will be conducted in the following fashion:

1. IN-HOUSE RUSH

Incoming Freshmen will attend an in-house rush in which they get a sense of each floor’s character and will submit a ranking of all the floors in the dorm to the rooming chairs. It will be the rooming chairs’ responsibility to assign rooms in a fashion that will maximize the number of Freshmen that are able to get one of their top three choices. Freshmen may choose to staple two or three preference sheets together if they wish to live with specific people. In this case, the preferences indicated on the top sheet will apply to all of the sheets.

2. ASSIGNMENT OF SPECIAL CASES

Students who arrive with a special request to be in a single as validated by RLSLP or in a single sex suite as validated by RLSLP should be provided with such housing as appropriate if possible. Students that need any other special considerations as validated by RLSLP or the Housemster should also be accommodated similarly. If there are any upperclassmen transfers, they should also be assigned rooms at this stage.

3. ASSIGNMENT OF FRESHMEN TO SINGLES

If any singles remain open in the dorm, incoming freshmen should be assigned to those rooms in a manner that will maximize freshmen preferences as listed on their preference sheets.

4. ASSIGNMENT OF FRESHMEN TO MULTIPLE OCCUPANCY ROOMS WITHOUT CROWDING

Freshmen should be assigned to all remaining open multiple occupancy rooms in the dormitory. Any double with one upperclassman in it should be filled with one freshman. Any open doubles should be filled with two freshmen. If there are not enough freshmen assigned to the dorm to fulfill this task, the house manager should be consulted. If three freshmen have stapled their preferences together showing that they wish to live in a triple together, they may be placed into a room at this stage and the floor that they are placed on should have a room crossed off the highest level that it appears on in the crowding grid. (see Step 5 for Crowding Grid details).

5. CROWDING

Crowding is to take place in an iterative fashion as described below. The order in which all rooms will be crowded will be as follows:

Rooms containing:

2 Freshmen

1 Sophomore and 1 Freshman

1 Junior and 1 Freshman

2 Sophomores

1 Junior and 1 Sophomore

2 Juniors

1 Senior and 1 Freshman

1 Senior and 1 Sophomore

1 Senior and 1 Junior

2 Seniors

The following crowding grid will be used for the purpose of crowding (Level 1 is the highest level):

Burton 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Conner 2, 3, 4, 5

Burton 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Conner 2, 3, 4, 5

Burton 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Conner 2, 3, 4, 5

Burton 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Burton 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Conner 2, 3, 4, 5

Burton 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Conner 2, 3, 4, 5

Burton 2, 3, 4, 5

Burton 1, 3, 4, 5

Conner 2, 3, 4, 5

Within each floor, rooms should be crowded in the following order at each iteration according to these Floor Crowd Lists:

Burton 1: 141D, 133C, 152D, 132D, 151D, 131C, 141A

Burton 2: 233C, 231D, 251D, 232D, 254F, 241C, 254D

Burton 3: 331D, 351D, 352D, 332D, 354F, 333C, 341C, 354D

Burton 4: 433C, 454F, 432D, 452D, 431D, 451D, 441C, 454D

Burton 5: 532D, 552D, 554F, 531D, 551D, 533C, 541C, 554D

Conner 2: 223H, 211B, 222A, 212C, 213A, 224A

Conner 3: 323H, 311B, 322A, 312C, 313A, 324A

Conner 4: 423H, 411B, 422A, 412C, 413A, 424A

Conner 5: 523H, 512C, 522A, 511B, 524A, 513A

252D (in the Kosher suite) is handled on a special basis according to Kosher preferences submitted to RLSLP and should have been addressed in Step 1.

Hence, Iteration 1 will only crowd rooms that contain 2 Freshmen. All the rooms in the dorm that contain 2 Freshmen at this stage should be identified by the rooming coordinators. Then, Level A should be examined and if any of the floors listed in that level contains a room with 2 Freshmen, that room should be crowded and that floor should be crossed of from Level A. If the floor contains more than one room with 2 Freshmen, the room to be crowded should be the one that appears earliest in that floor’s Floor Crowd List.

After all possibilities from Level A are finished, Level B should be examined, then Level C, etc, until all the rooms from this iteration are filled with crowds or until there remain no more Freshmen to be assigned housing. Floors to be crowded within the same level should be chosen according the choices that would maximize Freshmen preferences by placing the freshman in a way that would give the most number of freshman a high ranking choice floor from their preference sheets.

Iteration 2 should follow in assigning Freshmen to rooms with one sophomore and one freshman. The Crowding grid that should be used at this stage should come from iteration 1 with multiple floors crossed off as freshmen were assigned to those floors. The same manner of room assignment should take place where all the rooms in the dorm that fall under this iteration should be listed. Level A should be examined and if any rooms from a floor in level A fall under this iteration, Freshmen should be assigned to that room. Then Level B should be examined, followed by Level C, etc.

Iteration 3 is run like iteration 2 using the crowding grid after alteration from Iteration 2 and conducted for rooms containing 1 Junior and 1 Freshman. Iterations are thus run until all Freshmen assigned to Burton-Conner are placed into rooms.

Sophomores who are trying to decide during spring rooming which double will minimize their chances of being crowded are offered the following advice: Try to choose rooms that are near the end of the Floor Crowd List for your floor.

Floors that have many open doubles after spring rooming and hence will have many Freshmen triples the following year are less likely to receive upperclassmen crowds than floors that have few open doubles after spring rooming and many upperclassmen doubles.

Special concessions may have to be made by the BC rooming coordinators in unique situations such as single-sex needs, religious needs, etc.

Interpretation of the rooming policy follows a hierarchy of:

Floor Residents

Floor Chairs

BC Rooming Chairs

Each successive higher level has a final say of the rooming policy over lower levels. Questions should be addressed to the next higher level only by the level immediately below. If it is suspected that any level is being unjust, a written complaint should be submitted to JudComm where it will be heard and decided upon.

Following is a simplified example that can hopefully clarify the process:

For this example, we will use 5 floors: Burton 2, 3, 4 and Conner 2, 3. For Burton side rooms, we will use 51D, 31D, 41C. For Conner side rooms, we will use 23H, 12C.

Burton 2,3,4

Conner 2,3

Burton 2,3,4

Conner 2,3

Burton 2,3,4

With the Floor Crowd List:

Burton 2: 251D, 241C, 231D

Burton 3: 341C, 351D, 331D

Burton 4: 451D, 431D, 441C

Conner 2: 223H, 212C

Conner 3: 312C, 323H

Now suppose we have been through the initial steps of assigning Freshmen to all uncrowded slots and so have the following scenario in the dorm:

2 Freshmen: 331D, 351D, 431D, 441C, 451D, 223H, 323H

1 Sophomore and 1 Freshman: 241C, 312C

1 Junior and 1 Freshman: none

2 Sophomores: 231D, 251D, 341C, 212C

The dorm has 10 remaining Freshmen that need to be assigned rooms. First Iteration: Rooms with 2 Freshmen:

The first 2 rooms to be crowded are: 351D, 451D

223H, 323H

331D, 431D

No remaining rooms in floors listed.

441C

At the end of this iteration, the crowding grid looks like:

Burton 2

Empty

Burton 2

Conner 2, 3

Burton 2, 3

Three remaining Freshmen that need housing assignments.

Second Iteration: 1 Sophomore and 1 Freshman

241C

Empty

No applicable floors

312C

No rooms left in iteration.

Crowding grid now looks like:

Empty

Empty

Burton 2

Conner 2

Burton 2, 3

One remaining Freshman that needs a housing assignment.

Third Iteration: 1 Junior and 1 Freshman

No rooms in iteration, no changes to crowding grid

Fourth Iteration: 2 Sophomores

Empty

Empty

251D

All Freshmen assigned.

All assignments within these constraints should have been made within the context of Freshmen preferences as listed on the preference sheets which they submitted.