Demystify Housing Lottery

A COMPUTER MEMO reproduced in The Crimson last week indicates that College administrators have misled freshmen about the House assignment process. The memo states that the assignments are done by hand; the Administration has implied that the assignments are computerized. This discovery raises serious questions about the House assignment process and the credibility of the officials involved.

According to the memo, a computer assigns random numbers to each rooming group. But the crucial part of the housing lottery--the actual assignment--is completed and checked only by housing officials. This contradicts administrators' description of the housing procedure. Many students, having lost faith in the administrations' statements, may understandably suspect systematic official manipulation in this clandestine manual process.

Many students are now wondering whether administrators may be "misleading" them on other aspects of the housing process. Therefore, the Administration must not only remedy what is at least the potential for manipulation, but dispel these student suspicions. The House assignments, if they are still to be done manually, should be witnessed by members of the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life. CHUL overseers would prevent any more "mistakes," the more suspicion of which has undermined the integrity of this supposedly random process and the deans associated with it.