John Jay Lounge is usually just a freshman hangout spot, but beginning on Tuesday, March 29, Columbia’s undergraduate students will flock to the room for the annual suite selection process.

Vice President for Student and Administrative Services Scott Wright explains how this process will work.

"Students will have various appointment times. We will start with the seniors and then work backward through the sophomores. For general selection, the way this will work, anyone who enters into suite selection but does not end up finding a room or suite that they and their suitemates want to pick into always has the option of dropping into general selection. General selection appointment times will be issued once we know exactly how many people are in general selection, how many dropped from group into general, and then that is done 100% electronically. So, no matter where you are or what you are doing, you have a certain window (I believe it’s a nine minute window, but again, sometimes that is modified just slightly) where you will have the right to select a room without the person with the next worst lottery number intruding in," Wright said.

Speaking of lower lottery numbers, Rising sophomore Christian Rodrigo Munoz has number 3000, the lowest.

"While I’m looking it up I ask what the lowest you can get it this year. 3000, oh right. I texted a friend and bet her five bucks that I would get 3000, finally reached wherever it was, and I got 3000 and five bucks!" Munoz said.

Munoz wants to get a room here, in Ruggles. Wright shared news about some changes that could affect his, and your, chances.

"The biggest change that we have for this year is the new open housing program. That is the program where students of different genders are allowed to occupy a double room together. It is limited; it’s a pilot program. We’re going to see how it goes for the first year. So, its limited to six buildings, five of which are in suite style buildings and one of which is a traditional corridor style building, that being Wien. That was probably the biggest change. Students had been lobbying for that for about the past two years, and we finally got everyone together and got approval to put that in place," Wright explained.

"The one other change we also have is that there are no longer EC exclusion suites. So the five person suites that used to have an exclusion for the (typically) sophomores, will just be distributed according to the point value of all five members of the group. From a process point of view, those were the only changes for the room selection process for this year," Wright said.

When it is your turn to come to John Jay lounge to choose where you’ll be living next year, make sure you’re prepared.