Riepe to Rodin, your path to the high rises

How can you get into a high rise next year?

According to Penn’s Business Services Division, which is in charge of campus housing, if you really want to live in a high rise next year, you will be able to — you just need to be flexible about what types of rooms you’re willing to consider.

“Getting into the high rises is not the hard part,” Lenny Zeiger, associate director for Housing Assignments, said. However, he added that being selective about what type of room you want — like a four-bedroom quad or a single apartment — is hard.

One of the reasons why you might need to be less selective about room assignments in the high rises, Zeiger said, is because a lot of apartments with private rooms — like two-bedroom doubles and single rooms — are taken during the in-house selection period, when current college house residents can apply to live in the same house for the following year.

However, Zeiger added, apartments with shared rooms, like one-bedroom doubles and three-bedroom quads, will generally make it to the inter-house application process, a time when students who are planning to move in from other college houses next year can select housing.

So, what are your chances of getting into a high rise?

Last year during the in-house selection process, there were about 900 total high rise applications, and about 850 students were accepted to live in high rise rooms. The total number of spots available for upperclassmen in the high rises next year is between 1,900 and 1,950. Assuming similar in-house application numbers this spring, 44 to 45 percent of high rise beds could be taken during in-house process.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t get your high rise room. After about 1,050 people applied to all college houses last year through the inter-house selection process (and 1,000 ultimately received an assignment), there were still leftover beds in the high rises. Since students in the inter-house process do not specify their first choice housing, Business Services does not have data on the number of students who wanted to live in the high rises.

Additionally, Zeiger expects that there will be more open rooms in the high rises for upperclassmen this year. One reason he gave was that Harnwell is becoming an upperclassmen-only dorm, which will provide an extra 80 beds for returning students to live in the high rises.

Zeiger also noted that other on-campus housing options, like the newly-renovated Gregory Class of 1925 building, have become more attractive, which could cause residents to want to stay for a second year. With new paint and new furniture, among other renovations (such as a swipeless security system), “people are going be happy there,” Zeiger said.

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