Word: present
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Those who favor randomization point to the stereotypes of some of the houses as evidence of the lack of diversity produced by the present system, but the stereotypes of the houses--like all stereotypes--contain only a grain of truth...
...convinced that the present lottery system allows us to benefit from Harvard's diversity, then I'd like to draw your attention to some of the other alternatives that might maximize both student choice and diversity. I would be impossible to list all of the plans that people have suggested to me over the past weeks, so I will only detail what I consider to be the best alternative: non-ordered choice...
...ordered choice is quite similar to the present system. Students form rooming groups and can block together as they do now. Then, instead of ranking their top three choices in order, they pick (but don't rank) four houses that they would be happy in. The computer then puts the blocks in order at random as it does now, and it goes down the list, randomly choosing which of the four houses the group will live...
...system would also preserve a large amount of student choice. The non-ordered choice system might even provide students with more choice than the present system, since students would be listing their top four choices instead of their top three...
...ordered choice alternative and the present system let the students choose their own housing and still don't impede our ability to benefit from Harvard's diversity. If the housing lottery debate forced us to choose between the goals of diversity and student choice, we would be in the difficult situation of having to weigh the relative value of these two goods...