Housing: Recap of day two, preview of day three

Day Two of Suite Selection brought the second half of the 30-point round. The all-senior groups with lottery numbers worse than 1500 trickled in to John Jay lounge to either choose their rooms or see what was left on the Whiteboard and leave in disappointment.

The eight outstanding six-person townhouses were taken in the morning, getting cut off at 30/2279. This was a much tougher cutoff than last year, when six-person townhouses were available up until the very last group to pick before Regroup.

Conversely, the EC two-person flats had a cutoff of 30/1726, a much later cutoff than last year’s. It just goes to show how the cutoff history isn’t everything.

Once the townhouses and Claremont four-person suites were finished off, four- and six-person groups were pretty much forced to drop to Senior Regroup, with the exception of the brave group which took a Ruggles six-person suite (swallowing two doubles in the process).

This decision, combined with the shocking selection of the Harmony six-person suite during Senior Regroup, was bad news for some of the 20-point groups who had their hearts set on a six-person suite – that cutoff will be a bit tougher than we originally anticipated.

With no desirable four- or six-person suites remaining, the action in the afternoon revolved around the two- and five-person options as EC Exclusion suites and Woodbridge one-bedroom apartments made up the lion’s share of the selections. As it turned out, this trend continued into Senior Regroup, with Woodbridge and ECX as the most common choices then as well. In our preview of Suite Selection, we commented that there would probably be better Woodbridge options would be available for Regroup, increasing its popularity in the round. We didn’t realize, however, just how popular it would prove to be. In total, 25 Woodbridge doubles were taken by the Regroupers, five times as many as last year, an insane increase.

In addition to Woodbridge, two Symposium doubles and six Watt one-bedroom apartments went during Regroup, leaving four and five of those for tomorrow, respectively. They, along with the Woodbridge doubles, should be wiped clean by the day’s close. With 47 groups of two set to pick tomorrow, as many 21 pairs may have to choose between a Watt studio double, a large brownstone double, or dropping down. We’ll also see Ruggles eight-person suites start to go and, if no groups choose to drop, removed from the board by the day’s end.

Finally, tomorrow will bring the conclusion of the EC Exclusion suite drama. Before the start of Suite Selection, we predicted that a total of 28 ECX’s would be taken over the first two days and, we’re proud to say, we nailed that one. However, the fact that Housing held out an eighth floor ECX means that we’ll have to shift our cutoff up by one group, to 24/2675. (Housing informed us that the Barnard cap was hit today, so we’re assuming that 26.67/2922 is going to have to drop to General Selection.) A couple of pointers to the groups immediately following that projected cutoff: First of all, don’t take anything for granted. It’s entirely possible that some groups will choose to drop to General Selection and clear your path to EC, so make sure that your whole group is there on time, no matter what. Second of all, there is a five-person Claremont suite available, so you can consider that a backup plan in case you just miss out on an ECX.

We’ll keep you up to date on everything that happens in our Day Three liveblog, starting tomorrow morning at 9:30am.