Housing Transfers Will Be Difficult This Semester

The chances of many undergraduates successfully transfering Houses this fall are not good, Ann B. Spence, assistant dean of the College, said yesterday.

Spence said her office, which now handles certain housing matters, will not know how many spaces will be available for tranfers until September 28, the last day students may withdraw from the College without paying a fee.

In a memo which will be posted on House bulletin boards this week, Spence has announced that upperclassmen will be able to file forms requesting transfers to individual house offices by October 9. Applicants will be informed two weeks later if a transfer is possible.

Hopes Unraised

"At this point, I really don't want to raise peoples' hopes," Spence said. She added that the number of spaces available in certain Houses would depend on the preferences of the people applying for rooms.

The Housing Office, which formerly handled all transfers, was eliminated early this summer in an effort by Spence and Dean Fox to decentralize the housing system and make up for the inequality of the freshman lottery, Spence said. She added she hopes the new system will be more flexible and allow those who have good reasons to transfer.

"A good reason for wanting to transfer would be in someone's friends all lived in another House and they wanted to be with them" Spence said.

The Houses which are presently the most overcrowded are Kirkland, Eliot and Winthrop, and students who apply for individual transfers will have a better chance of success, Spence said.