For Jordan Hicklin, choosing a dorm for the 2024-25 school year was, “a little frustrating.” A transfer student currently living in Dancer Hall, he was planning on reserving a room in Lawther. 

With a reservation date of Feb. 15, he logged into the Housing Portal twenty minutes prior to his reservation time, but he quickly encountered, “numerous problems.”

He said, “I tried to get into the portal at the time I was given, but I was denied access, as it said there were too many people trying to get onto the server. And that frustrated me because I am sitting here in class, trying to set up my housing as fast as I can to ensure that I can get a room.”

On Feb. 15, the day of Hicklin’s reservation, close to 900 students were online picking their rooms. According to Annie Karr, the associate director of marketing for University Housing and Dining, current first-year students in the Live 2 Succeed program were able to choose their room that day, which may have contributed to the technical issues experienced by some students.

“The housing portal did not crash,” Karr said. “The system was slow because of the large amount of activity taking place, which is not unique to this year. It’s sort of like waiting in the queue for concert tickets. The high demand caused some people to have to wait longer than others. UHD staff helped students on-site and over the phone during those few hours, and IT increased server capacity within the portal.”

One current freshman, who preferred to remain anonymous, experienced some technical difficulties when they were attempting to reserve a room. 

“The website froze completely. Even the loading symbol froze. But, I could see the timer in the cart because you have like five minutes to reserve the room. So I had to sit there and watch it timeout and then had to refresh it and then try to figure it out again.”

Hicklin said he was not able to get a room in Lawther due to the technical difficulties he experienced, and re-reserved his current room in Dancer for next year.

“It did cost a lot of people a lot of time and frustration,” Hicklin said. “A lot of people didn’t get the housing they wanted or should have gotten. Personally, I am fine with my situation. I’m over it. Some people I know are still bummed out.”

Karr said the housing portal will be moving to the cloud next year, so they are anticipating a faster response time moving forward. She said UHD’s goal is to ensure the room reservation process is as efficient and accessible as possible.

“We have a comprehensive plan in place for the contract renewal process. Lots of communication goes out to students leading up.”

According to Karr, students in the Live 2 Succeed Program get priority when reserving rooms. Students in Live 2 Succeed contract to live on campus for two years and receive a $1,000 scholarship in addition to priority reservations. According to one of UHD’s contract renewal tips, “All students on the Live 2 Succeed program will have priority during room selection. This includes those students who are currently in year two or three of their contract, as the benefit of priority room selection carries with it as long as you continue living on campus.”

The order for reservation groups is the following: students who want to reserve their same room, upperclass students on Live 2 Succeed, first-year students on Live 2 Succeed, upperclass students not on Live 2 Succeed and first-year students not on Live 2 Succeed. 

Karr said the contract renewal process saw a near record number of returning students for fall 2024, and anticipated occupancy for the fall semester is projected to be as high as it was in 2018. UHD anticipated another increase in the number of students choosing to live on campus for the 2024-25 school year.

With thousands of students scrambling for rooms, confusion and frustration resulted for students like Grant Hospodarsky, a Panther Village resident. Him and his three roommates had one opening in their four bedroom dorm, and were able to pull in one of their friends into their roommate group. However, because their fourth roommate had a reservation date of Feb. 20, people they did not know were contracting to join their room. 

After much negotiation and room swapping, they were able to get their intended roommate in the room. 

“I understand we have more students than we’ve had before, so you kind of have to deal with living with randoms,” Hospodarsky said. “I’m glad that we worked out, but I know that there are plenty of other people who have had worse things.”

He said while he felt comfortable reaching out to those who joined their room, he recognizes not everyone would be.

“My heart goes out to those who are not as extroverted in terms of feeling comfortable reaching out and having those difficult conversations,” Hospodarsky said. “Like, you have to tell somebody, ‘we don’t want to live with you.’ I mean, that’s a tough conversation to have.”

Karr said UHD shares a number of contract renewal tips in their communication leading up to the contract renewal process, one of those regarding roommate groups and apartments. The tip reads, “Fully open apartments will be hard to come by. Most likely there will not be a fully open apartment in Panther Village, Roth or Jennings when PRDs open. This is because many of our students will select their same spaces or be pulled in as a roommate during the Same Room/Roommate steps. This includes one-bedroom apartments. Please plan accordingly as it pertains to coordinating roommate groupings.” 

Hospodarsky said he hopes for a more simplified process in the future.

“We’re just trying to operate within the system they create. So the easier or more simplified that you can make it the better,” He said. “I wish there was a way to group single people into a room so they don’t break up roommate groups and kind of flop from place to place.”

Hicklin said that while he recognizes the hard work UHD puts into the contract renewal process, he would have liked to see more communication surrounding the technical issues experienced by students on Feb. 15.

“It needs to be addressed,” Hicklin said. “I think there should have been some context given in a public manner.”