Want to switch neighborhoods? Too bad.

Humor by Richard Coca
March 8, 2022, 12:03 a.m.

After the application window opened for students to request a change to their neighborhood, students are reporting to The Occasionally that their requests have promptly been shut down.

“I applied with a group of three exactly at midnight, excited that all my friends and I might live together, and got an email opening with ‘We regret to inform you…’ almost immediately after,” Grey Wilmer ’25 said.

Wilmer is not alone. Dozens of other students have reported that their neighborhood reassignment applications have also been swiftly shut down. For example, The Occasionally has received a screenshot of an email a student received with no text in the body of the message and only the word “No” in the subject line.

As more students begin to complain about this newly rolled-out process, Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) administrators emphasized that the neighborhood reassignment process was “best for students who wish to live in any neighborhood besides the one in which they are currently assigned.” At the same time, they highlighted the limitations of such a high volume in reassignment requests, replying, “look, someone is going to have live in Governor’s Corner.”

Those who have been able to get reassigned have also begun to express concern and even regret. Tina Wang ’23 is one of the first students this cycle to be assigned to the newly established neighborhood, “Neighborhood!” This new neighborhood weaves together a wide variety of new housing options ranging from the couches on the second floor of Old Union to apartments posted on Facebook that may or may not exist.

“I don’t know anyone else who has gotten assigned to a parking spot near me in the underground parking garage under EVGR. It’s as though your housing gets worse as your seniority increases,” she said.

Those who have yet to apply for neighborhood reassignment have been encouraged to just maybe put it off to 12:01 a.m. on March 29. R&DE also underlined that they are hoping to make the rest of this year’s housing selection process as stress-free as possible, adding that instead of submitting a list of ranked housing choices, students will now have to design their own neighborhood and submit architectural blueprints to be guaranteed housing.

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

Richard Coca '22 has previously served as editor of The Grind for volume 258, managing editor of Satire in vol. 257, and CLIP Co-chair in vol. 255. He is majoring in Human Biology and minoring in Anthropology. Contact him at rcoca 'at' stanforddaily.com.

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