Word: freshmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Next week, each rooming group will be given its lottery number. Then the fun really begins. Countless freshmen will attend countless ice-cream bashes and Masters' Open Houses and spend hours talking to upperclassmen in order to determine whether the "character" of each house is right for them...
Meanwhile, houses will sponsor tours and parties designed to recruit the "right types" of people. Then, after Harvard's peculiar version of fraternity rush closes, freshmen will play the numbers, attempting to select the ideal house to which their lottery numbers will permit entry. Not until the day before spring break will screams of anguish and joy emanate from the Yard, as freshmen finally learn where they will spend their next three years...
...visible fault--unnecessary complexity--works to create the more substantial problem of homogeneity within the houses. As the weeks drag on, the importance of where one will live seems to increase; the more time devoted to the house-selecting process, the more important the whole ordeal appears. And since freshmen--barricaded in the Yard and consequently isolated from the houses--have little idea of what house life is really like, they are all too likely to get caught up in the lottery hysteria and give undue weight to stereotypes and indeed, to the entire issue of housing...
...current long, drawn-out process--which only complicated an older but similarly long and anxiety-producing process--must give way to a more simple system. It must do so out of respect for the nerves of freshmen, and, more importantly, in order to allow students to benefit from Harvard's diversity...
...solution, then, to the annual housing fiasco is a completely random lottery. Let freshmen choose with whom they wish to live, but end the complexity there and leave the rest to fate and the University Hall computer...