Student messages about housing fill whiteboards in Sigma. | Christine Chan/THE CHIMES

Housing is resuming the new housing lottery procedure on Friday after a system glitch forced the process to a halt Monday night.

The glitch, discovered by multiple students, created a loophole in which students could select their rooms before their designated times, effectively displacing some students. Housing has since restructured the sign-up process in an attempt to accommodate the displaced students. Sigma and Horton Hall were the dorms most affected, according to Beth Tabor, associate dean of Residence Life.

Students discuss frustrations about new system

A heated discussion thread began on the Biola University Facebook page Monday night after students complained about the new housing selection procedure. This is the first year housing has been done online and in a lottery format, and Biola worked with an outside company to format the system. The number of students who took advantage of the system exceeded 20-30, Tabor said.

Motives vary, but many students abuse system

“Some stumbled upon it, some did it purposefully,” Tabor said. “They were able to figure out, ‘Oh, if I push certain buttons, I can get in and reserve prior to my time.’ So that’s why we shut it down, because they were displacing people by doing that and causing panic. If you look at the halls where that was happening, that’s where the biggest panic [was] happening. Other people [weren’t] necessarily panicking.”

Students discovered that by clicking “back” then “forward” on the same-building selection page on my.Biola using Google Chrome, the system permitted them to select their rooms, whatever their status.

Room selection confusion results in worry

Some students blamed their inability to select rooms on rooms preselected for freshmen. But Tabor said that wasn’t the case, as fewer rooms were reserved for freshmen this year than last year. In actuality, the students who signed up too soon prevented other students from selecting their rooms on time.

The chaos left many students panicked and frustrated, since Biola requires all non-commuter freshmen and sophomores to live on campus. Residence Life staff assured underclassmen that they would still have spots on campus, in accordance with Biola’s guidelines. Some students decried that the system was upsetting community.

“It’s kind of like they forced our hand in a way, because with the lottery, it’s really impersonal, and they don’t consider anything about floors and their priorities,” said freshman Trenton Ahern, who lives in Sigma.

Previously registered students to keep rooms

Residence Life has since decided to allow people who reserved their rooms without taking advantage of the shortcut to keep their rooms, according to Tabor. And starting Friday morning, students with same-building selection will begin in the same order it would have occurred without the glitch. For people who did cut, however — and Residence Life is well aware of who they are — the story will be slightly different.

“We know some people stumbled across it, and some people found out about stumbling across it and tried to stumble across it,” Tabor said. “So, in light of that, we don’t necessarily know their intent. We’re going to look at how big the numbers were. Some people really displaced people. What we’re going to do is pull out their room assignment and give them back their time, when they would have selected.”

Biola community considers integrity as a result of housing problems

The system brought up discussions about integrity at Housing and amongst students.

Ryan Wong, a freshman in South Horton, had discovered the glitch on Monday accidentally. Wong talked to Housing on Wednesday, and later said he realized it was his mistake.

Michael Stephens, a freshman currently in Sigma, admitted that he used the system loophole in hopes of reserving one of the three remaining rooms in Sigma. He understood why Housing had booted him from the room he reserved early, but found difficulty in understanding why people who had discovered the glitch by accident were also being kicked out.

“The point of so many people using the glitch was to reveal that there was a serious issue, not just in the fact that there was a glitch, but an issue that there wasn’t enough dorms and people were resulting to doing this glitch just to have a safe selection,” Stephens reasoned. “I should have never had to feel like, ‘If I use this glitch, I’ll get it, otherwise I won’t be back in my dorm.’ [Housing] didn’t address it.”

Stephens, a computer science major, was disappointed that the glitch even existed, and suggested a way it might have been avoided. He described a temporary fix that only involved typing a small amount of code redirecting users to use a different browser.

“I looked at their code and they have a function that already detects what kind of browser you’re using,” he said. “They were halfway there; it could have been fixed within a very short amount of time.”

Lack of same-floor option frustrates students

Students expressed disappointment and disgruntlement over being unable to have the option of selecting a room on their current floor and being “stranded,” or left without on-campus options, due to all other dorms being filled. Sigma residents were particularly vocal.

Junior Josiah Gonzalez, a resident assistant on Sigma’s only male floor, expressed some of the frustrations of his floor, The Unit.

“A lot of the guys in Sigma are freshmen because the turnaround rate was huge last year, and they are unable to get back into the dorm because of bad lotto picks,” he said. “They feel that it’s not just the job of Housing to make sure that everyone gets a house, it’s the job of Housing to ensure that community is being built, and that people are getting together and maintaining these communities and expanding them as well.”

Unexpectedly large return results in housing crunch

The fact that more returning students are choosing to live on campus than usual, coupled with the anticipation of another large incoming freshman class, causes quite the housing crunch. About 71 percent of continuing students registered for on-campus housing compared to the typical 68 to 70 percent. The discrepancy may seem small, but those numbers mean more than a few extra bodies, Tabor said.

Although incoming freshmen rooms are set aside all over campus, only 1,150 out of the 2,779 available beds are reserved for freshmen. Last year, 1,187 beds were promised to Admissions for freshmen. Residence Life sets aside rooms for 90 percent of freshmen, factoring in that some students commute.

Housing process more complicated because of desire for mixed community

The housing process is simpler at some other schools like Westmont College who have special dorms for freshmen. Those schools know the number of beds they have for freshmen. But, at Biola, that isn’t so. Thus, calculating rooms is especially challenging. Tabor said a desire to preserve community amongst continuing students –– and provide a mix of mature continuing students and fresh blood –– renders the process more difficult.

“Everything’s a guess,” Tabor said.