Panicked students and parents are reaching for the ballpoints as the race to scribble names on first apartment leases begins once again.

While some spent the last month searching for new independence off campus, others were biting their nails in their residence hall rooms, awaiting the all-important housing lottery form e-mail that determined whether or not they received on campus housing, or decided their fate of possible homelessness.

Crunch time is here for finding available housing on and off campus at Appalachian State University.

This year, the Housing and Residence Life Department decided to move away from the method of students standing in line on a specified day at the John E. Thomas building to secure their residency on campus, to a 21st century approach using technology.

This year is a trial run of a new online system that distributes winners of the on-campus housing lottery form via e-mail.

While I completely agree the old system needed to be revamped and renewed, it does not come without serious flaws.

The process of the new online lottery system was entirely misunderstood by the majority of the student population because it was not clearly explained by the university.

“I think the challenge for the students has been they don’t have that instant gratification of knowing,” Stacy R. Sears Associate Director for Administration of Housing and Residence Life said. “They had to fill out their housing application and then they had to wait.”

A simple, but valid solution to a new and prolonged process boils down to timing and a better marketing strategy.

The online system is a novel idea, but beginning the process earlier in the year with step-by-step instructions would have been a more effective strategy to disperse hundreds of e-mails.

Sears said over 3,200 students entered the lottery this year for possible housing in the fall of 2009.

Originally, the department reserved an estimated 1,400 spaces for returning students.

You can do the math for the amount left out.

Other solutions to the lack of urgency and lengthy process would be sending out a larger bulk of e-mails at one time and reducing the amount of time students had to respond to a winning e-mail.

Sears said the volume of e-mails sent out each day fluctuated.

To start, less than 30 people received their congratulatory e-mails, but each day the numbers increased to speed up the process.

Students also had 96 hours to respond to e-mails if they were awarded housing.

More people could have been accommodated and reassured of their housing arrangements the following year if a more generous amount of e-mails would have been sent out daily, and the response time was decreased dramatically.

Bumping up the actual housing application process would also allow those who do not receive on campus housing to still have an option of finding a decent apartment close to the university.

Most apartments in the vicinity are very expensive and lack vacancies because many people started signing leases at the beginning of February, while the lottery was still being conducted.

Each of these flaws in the system were acknowledged and agreed upon by Sears.

Another kink in the online system the housing department admitted to is the lack of marketing to students and parents of the date the lottery notification would end.

False information stating the lottery would end Feb. 20 added stress for many students and their parents who had not received the housing e-mail.

While in all actuality, the lottery ended Feb. 27, a week later.

Due to this falsification, the housing department received an influx of phone calls, primarily from concerned parents, Anitra D. Ball, housing front office supervisor, said.

This was an increase of hundreds of calls compared to what the department typically screens each year.

On-campus housing is something a large volume of students become concerned and stressed out over each year. Simple steps taken to work out the kinks in the new online system would better accommodate the needs of anxious students and apprehensive parents.

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