“We want to ensure housing selection is both fair and efficient. Accordingly, we plan to preserve the original application process, the roommate groups and the room selection order,” wrote Jordan Stone and Terrance Sanders on behalf of ResEd in an email to the NYU Abu Dhabi community on April 3.

On April 2, the housing application for NYUAD opened for select students. A new housing selection program, spearheaded by NYU's housing system vendor, was implemented at NYUAD under the Office of Residential Education. Within hours students began to notify Residential Education, citing a technical flaw with the site.

The new system had failed as NYUAD students could and did reserve singles before their proscribed log-in time.

Part of the new StarRez housing system included a hold feature which enabled students to hold a room before their designated time slot. The application was supposed to progressively roll out housing selection time slots according to seniority, upperclassmen having priority and underclassmen coming last.

"The online housing platform through which all NYU students select their housing assignment did not correctly re-apply the technical validations for user identifications, meaning that students could hold rooms before their allotted time slot, thus interfering with the integrity of the housing selection inventory," explained Jordan Stone and Terrance Sanders of Residential Education, in an email to The Gazelle.

NYUAD’s underclassmen faced slim possibilities of getting a single suite, which created an incentive for the exploiting the hold feature.

Knowing that all single suites would be taken by the time the selection window opened for underclassmen, many underclassmen logged into the housing portal and were able to hold rooms before their assigned time slot. The hold feature was clearly visible on the housing portal. This caused many upperclassmen, who logged in at their assigned time, to think most of the single suites were already taken by underclassmen.

There was outrage from many upperclassmen on NYUAD social media.

Not all underclassmen were remorseful though.

“ResEd messed up, we didn’t do anything wrong,” said a member of the Class of 2021.

That view was apparently shared by many students as the level of system circumvention was notably high for NYUAD when NYU decided for a total system re-do. According to the NYUAD Office of Student Life, "In collaboration with NYU's housing office in New York, we have confirmed that up to 42 NYUAD students had accessed the housing portal prior to their assigned time; the result of this incorrect use of the system was that up to 168 beds/rooms were blocked/reserved in this manner."

Nevertheless, this year’s housing selection at NYUAD was the first test for the whole global network, but due to its failure, it has been postponed for all NYU campuses.

NYU had planned to trial the new housing system with StarRez, NYU's housing placement platform vendor, this year ahead of incoming changes to the system.

"StarRez will be phasing out support for their previous desktop client as time progresses in favor of their web-based application; this is change from the vendor and is not the result of any changes from within NYU. Accordingly, all NYU campuses are gradually modifying specific functions of the housing process to align with the support services offered by the company StarRez," wrote Stone and Sanders in an an email to The Gazelle.

Because of the difficulties associated with fixing the program in a timely manner, the housing selection process will now revert to the old StarRez system used in the fall. It is supposed to be opened to the NYUAD community sometime next week. The same order of time slots will be preserved from last week, and those students who already selected a room will likely have to go through the process again.

This is not the first ResEd shortfalling in recent memory. Earlier this year, many upperclassmen were upset with ResEd’s refusal to accommodate their roommate requests, despite having vacant rooms in their suite. Many students expressed their frustration with ResEd over this issue on social media going into this past spring. Spring of 2017 also saw a debacle following housing priorities given to underclassmen as part of a lottery system.

“The READ [Residential Education Advisory Committee] StuGov Committee has been in touch with the ResEd Operations team since the first day of room selection and we were/are involved in the discussions regarding how to roll out the new process,” said Marie-Claude Hykpo, Class of 2018, Vice President of Student Government, and Student Government Representative to the READ committee.

Additional information made available by NYUAD Student Life