University Will Not Run New Lottery

University officials said yesterday they will not rerun the housing lottery for the Class of '82, adding that they gave no rooming group or housing bloc preferential treatment in the assignment process.

Thomas A. Dingman '67, assistant dean of the College, said yesterday he sees no reason to reassign Houses, despite his admission Thursday that statements he made in a letter to freshmen explaining the lottery to freshmen explaining the lottery may have been misleading.

No Need

"The lottery has been run the same way for at least three years, so there is no need to rerun it this year," Dingman said.

He added that he will tell freshmen their lottery numbers if they come to his office and ask for them.

"We don't release them in the first place because we don't want people thinking they have to run around and check everyone else's," Dingman said.

Dingman said Thursday housing officials conduct the assignment process by hand after a computer punches each group's card with a random number.

The assignment of Houses by hand makes no difference in the outcome of the lottery, Dean Fox said yesterday, adding, "The lottery will not be redone this year because the computer would produce identical results."

Dingman said he has refused to change Housing assignments for all groups who have requested changes.

He added that he did make one exception, however, when he found that a keypuncher accidentally interchanged the House choices for two groups on their rooming cards.

"This happened last year when "QU" (Quincy) was punched in for "CU" (Currier) in one case," he said.

Two of the students who discovered the mistake, Eileen M. Sweeney '82 and Karen E. Rochlin '82, said yesterday Dingman reassigned them from Kirkland House to Leverett House, their original first choice, after he recognized the error.

One Matthews student said yesterday that 27 out of 82 students in Matthews North, or 32.8 per cent, did not receive one of their top three house choices.

"I don't know how you account for something like that," Dingman said, adding that only 14 per cent of the fresh men class overall did not receive one of their top three House choices.

W.C. Burriss Young, associate dean of freshmen, said yesterday people from Matthews North have come to him for the past three years complaining about the high percentage of students in that entry not receiving one of their top choices.

"I don't have the foggiest idea why this happens." Young said