We, the students of Vanderbilt, feel as though the process for off campus housing has been unfair to us this year. Given that when we applied to Vanderbilt, we were told that living on campus as a senior was encouraged, and not mandatory, it does not seem right that we are being forced to live in the dorms once again due to a lottery system. We have devoted much time, care and money to this University and if we would like to live off campus as seniors, it is perplexing as to why we would not be allowed to. We believe that living in a real apartment, not an on-campus dormitory, is imperative to our growth and maturation before graduating college.

Further, the time line of the housing process was not conducive to us truly applying for what we want. Being that both application fees for off-campus apartments and the ballots for the Warren and Moore dormitories were due before we were alerted that we would not be granted permission to live off campus, we are now out of money (because the deposits were non-refundable) and are being forced to choose out of a group of dorms that were not our first choices. It seems as though we are being punished for applying for off-campus housing through an arbitrary lottery system.