As Princeton’s undergraduate population continues to grow, room draw has become an increasingly high-stakes process, but students are finding strategic ways to navigate the pressure.
This spring, 779 rooms were available to upperclass students through the housing draw, but with many rooms to be chosen, limited selection windows, and housing portal technical issues, tensions ran high.
For rising juniors especially, the draw represents a tough choice that occurs year after year: whether to remain in their residential college or venture into upperclass student housing.
“We ideally wanted to stay in our respected res colleges, just because of having [air conditioning] … but once we found out our draw times in Whitman were not good enough to get us rooms we want, we then decided to do upperclassmen,” said Ian Barnett ’27, a current Whitman resident who had one of the earliest draw times among rising juniors in the upperclass draw.
The first group began picking their rooms at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, April 11. Upperclass room draw continued through April 17. The limited amount of five and six-person suites were the first to run out, followed by singles, with the last one selected by 1:05 p.m. on April 16. Doubles followed shortly after, running out the next day.
Each student has a two-minute window to select their room before the next group can draw. Some students noticed that the available room list did not update consistently, with gaps of up to two hours without a refresh. For students with later times, this created uncertainty: Were their top picks still available?
“They gotta update the sheet more often … our draw time was at 2:08 and the last update was a little after noon, and we were lowkey stressing,” Barnett said.
On April 14, the list went without an update for over two hours, from 11:16 a.m. to 1:27 p.m. A similar gap occurred on April 15, when the list was not updated from 12:40 p.m. until 2:26 p.m.
In a statement to The Daily Princetonian, University Spokesperson Ahmad Rizvi explained that the current housing software cannot publish a dynamic available rooms list, and staff must manually update, format, and upload the spreadsheet throughout the draw.
“The amount of time needed to update, format, and upload the available rooms list can vary depending on availability of staff, who are often simultaneously supporting students who are actively selecting rooms during Room Draw,” Rizvi wrote. Staff also need to re-add rooms selected in earlier draw groups that fail to sign their housing contracts.
He added that a new housing management system, due to go live in July 2025, will support dynamic refreshes of data related to room availability in the future.
Some students experienced other issues related to the housing selection software.
Nick Zhu ’26, a member of a seven-person draw group, drew at 11:28 a.m. on April 14 intending on getting a quad in Feinberg Hall.
“That was the plan, at least,” he said. At their draw time, Nick and his group filtered by Feinberg, and the system populated with a message saying that there were no rooms available in the residential hall.
“Looking at the available rooms list, there was like every single Feinberg room left, and then we looked at the time list … [there was] zero chance that all Feinberg rooms were taken,” Zhu said regarding his group’s reaction to the mishap. “I think we all realized that the rooms were available but were not showing up for some reason.”
Will Suringa ’26 had a draw time on the first day of the upperclass draw and intended on drawing into Walker Hall, a previously graduate-only building. As he described, Walker Hall “wasn’t on the drop down” of available rooms at the time of his draw on the housing portal. “We spent a couple of minutes during our draw time looking for it, but we ended up not finding anything,” Suringa continued.
Scully Hall, consistently one of the most desirable upperclass residence halls, began the room draw with the most available rooms: 131. Scully was also the first to run out, completely filling by April 15 at 2:26 p.m. Its modern amenities, including air conditioning and sizable laundry facilities, continue to make it one of the most highly sought-after halls year after year.
“Obviously the first choice is Scully because of the air conditioning,” said Barnett. “Then we also looked at Dod because they had some nice singles and quads, but they tend to get filled up pretty easily.”
Brown Hall, despite being the seventh highest in terms of available rooms at the start of draw, ended with the most available rooms, with 14 quads.
Quads saw the most dramatic change in size throughout the draw, starting with an average of 590.82 square feet. By the end of the draw, that average had dropped by around 83 square feet. Singles followed a similar trend, decreasing from an average of around 162 square feet at the start of the draw to only 93 square feet.
Hussain Asadi ’27, who landed one of the latest draw times — “page 51 out of 51,” as he put it — was among those who had to make quick decisions with limited options.
“My draw time was so late I didn’t even bother writing it down,” Asadi said.
He suggested ways the University could make the process more transparent and accessible for students with fewer choices.
“At the later draw times, it’s realistic to offer more in-depth breakdowns — interactive floor plans or 3D room layouts would help us make more informed choices,” Asadi said.
Even those with later times found ways to stay positive.
“I’m pledging Independent, so I wanted to have an accessible kitchen, which our new room has … also, it’s pretty close to the U-Store, so that’s good if we ever need food,” Ephraim Meles ’27 said. Meles had one of the latest draw times in the draw. “I’m lucky not to be in charge of that process, and I feel for whoever is — I believe they are doing the best they can.”
While room draw is widely considered a frustrating process, the University says it is actively working to improve it. According to Rizvi, “The University actively analyzes the size of the student population in order to effectively manage the housing inventory.”
Rizvi noted that while increased undergraduate enrollment has impacted room availability, “the reclamation of Walker Hall for undergraduate use and the future opening of Hobson College are examples of the University’s continued planning efforts to support undergraduate student housing.”
Some students who were unable to draw into a room will test their luck on the waitlist, where the deadline to apply is April 30. For those that have rooms for next year, however, room draw has come to an end.
Danna Duarte is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Chima Operaji is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Vincent Etherton contributed reporting.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com
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