Chatroom offers insider's look into housing

Incoming freshmen will no longer have to rely on chat rooms or online videos to figure out which college house to apply to.

PennSpace, a new bulletin-board Web site designed to help incoming students decide where to live, will go live today at 5 p.m., when hundreds of applicants will receive their admissions decisions.

The Web site, designed by Penn's College House and Academic Services and maintained by WowBB, a bulletin board service, will allow incoming freshmen to talk with current students before applying for first-year housing.

"It's designed to provide information that often gets neglected," CHAS director Leslie Delauter said.

Delauter said that before, incoming freshmen could "get information from many other sources on the Internet, like College Confidential, but that information is not always accurate. A lot of these sources don't mention anything else but the Quad or off-campus choices."

When creating the site, CHAS had to account for numerous privacy issues by consulting with administrators and lawyers.

"There's still a big parental concern that students be safe on these forums, and we try to protect private information as much as possible," she said of concerns including individuals hacking onto the site and violating various privacy codes.

The site will have "separate boards on the forum set up for each college house for discussions," NSO co-ordinator Troy Majnerick said. "There are also boards on a variety of other subjects like house academic opportunities and rooming information."

Majnerick said the site, which will be deactivated in late April before housing applications are due, cost around $100 to set up.

About 100 preselected Penn students, from Residential Advisors to Residential Advisory Board members, will respond to student questions on the site, Majnerick said, adding that 92 upperclassmen have already signed up.

One of those students, Peers Helping Incoming New Students member and Wharton senior Corey Hulse, said the site will aid student helpers to be more useful to incoming students.

"On Pennster, we were able to answer all sorts of questions," he said. "But the main problem was that, by that time, their housing was already decided. . We found out that students weren't making educated choices."

And although only certain students will be allowed to post on the site, Hulse said CHAS encouraged the volunteers to be "appropriately honest."

"If a person lived in Hill and had a bad experience, he should say that, but he should also give reasons so we have a constructive dialogue."

Incoming freshman Steven Guo, a senior in Edmonds Woodway High School, said the forum would help him adjust to Penn.

"I'd like to know about the different aspects of each house," he said. "I've heard certain good and bad things about the apartments and dorms, and I think this forum is a good idea."

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