Amid website changes even after the application deadline, various administrators citing different rules and uncertainty over eligibility, many resident assistant (RA) applicants said this year’s application cycle is riddled with a lack of transparency and clarity from Residential Education (ResEd).
For example, while some future coterminal masters students (co-terms) have been told they don’t meet the housing requirements, others have been able to continue through the process.
“ResEd has not communicated to all of the applicants as a whole,” said Isabelle McNabb ’26, an RA applicant this year. “This eligibility change, it’s just been on the individual basis, and only after many follow ups, whether it’s calling, showing up to the interview and asking straight up and then being directed again to the email.”
McNabb, a senior who plans to coterm next year, said she began working on her application back in mid-December under the impression she would be eligible based on the phrasing from the University at the time.
The ResEd website initially stated, “To be eligible to be hired as a residential student leader or to pre-assign to a theme house, students need at least one guarantee quarter.” A guarantee quarter is a quarter of secured housing on campus.
On Jan. 29, administrators informed McNabb and many other seniors intending on coterming via email that they will not be eligible, citing the updated version of the website, which now reads that applicants need “at least three guarantee quarters.”
“Housing eligibility is based on the term of the RA appointment fitting within students’ guaranteed allotment of undergraduate housing quarters,” wrote Cheryl Brown, the assistant vice provost for Residential Education, in an email to The Daily. “So the language used to describe eligibility for undergraduate students, who may be in co-term programs, has changed from ‘one year of housing’ to ‘three quarters’ to align with the language used campus-wide.”
McNabb was not the only applicant who encountered these challenges.
“Essentially, a bunch of us [future co-terms] have separately emailed ResEd, and they’re very firm in their decision, even though on their website throughout all of this time, it was hyperlinked to information saying you only need one quarter of eligible housing. And now, they’ve retroactively changed it to three,” said a co-term RA applicant this year, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Issues with this application cycle arrived amid other RA concerns, namely, the filling of vacancies and unjust firings.
Some current RAs and RA applicants cited future plans to cut the number of RAs across cooperative houses (co-ops) and other residential staff teams as exacerbating this year’s application process.
On top of the housing eligibility changes this year, applicants are now required to attend a resident student leader info session and an interview before the rest of the application process began.
Changes to co-term eligibility, though, were not as transparent to applicants.
“I think all of us felt incredibly blindsided,” said the anonymous RA applicant. ”If I just made a mistake and I was the only co-term applying, then that’s on me. Maybe I didn’t read the directions carefully. But just such a mass amount of co-terms got rejected from this process that I feel like that means that everyone was miscommunicated to.”
Being an RA serves as an essential source of income for some students; RAs earn $12,400 for the academic year. Co-terms are particularly vulnerable, as they are considered graduate students for financial aid.
“I think, just in general, for co-terms, it’s hard, because a lot of people even accepted their co-term offer thinking they’d be able to RA. That funds a big part [of the co-term],” said another senior RA applicant and current RA, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Applicants claim the communication they did receive throughout the process was often cold and ambiguous. Administrators often provided changing answers to inquiries, they said, or deferred responsibility to someone else.
“I kept asking questions, and it’s all met with this generic response,” said the anonymous RA applicant and current RA. “They never will apologize. They just change the wording, or they just update the website.”
Brown reaffirmed ResEd’s commitment to communication with applicants in an email to The Daily.
“When we identify areas where additional clarity is needed — such as the clarification that one year of eligibility means three academic quarters — we update our materials accordingly. We remain committed to open, ongoing communication with students,” wrote Brown in an email to The Daily.
McNabb and other potential RAs remain frustrated.
“They’re just not being transparent at all,” said McNab