Rising Second-year Students Face Issues With Applying for Housing Due to an Unforeseen System Shutdown

Residence Life’s 2023-24 school year housing application system had unexpected technological issues, leaving some students waiting for the system to load for multiple hours Feb. 23, the first day the system was open to current first-years.

The issues with the system began at the beginning of the selection period, Dr. Des’mon M. Taylor, director of Residence Life, wrote in an email to The Phoenix. 

“Students alerted our office that the Room Selection system was not loading properly,” Taylor wrote. “Our team immediately began troubleshooting with [Information Technology Services] and RMS Mercury, our housing software provider.”

First-year Ainsley King said she was waiting on the loading screen in order to select her housing for over three hours. 

King said she received a priority housing ticket, which allowed her to be one of the first students to select her preferred dorm for the 2023-24 school year. When she logged in to select her housing, she was prepared with a list of her top options, which included Santa Clara, Bellarmine, Fairfield, Fordham and Marquette Halls. 

“I organized a spreadsheet, hopped on at 10:30 expecting it to be a little slow, thinking ‘I will be here until 11:00, 11:15 at most,” King said. “I sat on that website waiting for it to load until 1:45 when they sent out an email saying ‘hey everyone get off the website, we are sending you all new times.’”

The university sent an email to impacted students explaining the source of the problems and the course of action for resolution of the issues. 

“As you likely know, this morning our system was running very slowly,” the university wrote in an email to students. “It has been determined that this issue was likely due to an unusually high volume of traffic to the Vacancy Viewer. To best maintain the original room selection order, all scheduled room selection times have been pushed back. This will allow students scheduled for this morning to complete their selection.” 

When King called the university to explain she was having difficulties with the housing selection site, she was told they were not expecting to have difficulties with the system as it had worked fine for the upperclassmen on a previous day. 

King said she thought the university should have expected issues, as far more first and second- year students have to pick their housing than third-year students due to the second-year housing requirement for Loyola students living on campus.

“More of the frustration for me was really just sitting on that website for three and half hours, waiting, sitting at my desk,” King said. “I couldn’t even close my website to walk to Damen and get lunch. Calling Residence Life, being on hold for an hour, that’s where the frustration came from for me.”

In order to help the selection process move faster, a Vacancy Viewer tool was implemented on the website where students could see what dorms were still available, even before their time slot had arrived. This was intended to let students adjust their top choices ahead of time, according to Taylor. 

In an email to students affected by the system shutdown, the university asked students not to use the Vacancy Viewer tool, citing it as the source of the issues with the site.

​​“We will not be reposting the Vacancy Viewer or Practice Selection templates moving forward in an effort to ensure we do not experience this problem again,” the university wrote in an email to students. “It is essential that you do not access the Residence Life Portal prior to your selection time so that our system can run smoothly while students are selecting.”

The university encouraged the use of the Vacancy Viewer in previous emails to students before the day of housing selection, according to King. 

Taylor said the Vacancy Viewer led many more people than those who were choosing their housing at that time to be on the website at once, leading to the system shutdown.

“We continued to work with students and roommate groups as they came to our office, but it was ultimately decided to remove the Vacancy Viewer and suspend Room Selection for the time being,” Taylor wrote in an email to The Phoenix.

Taylor said despite these issues with the website, all students were able to keep their lottery numbers, and so it all ended up remaining fair. 

“Once we were able to make those changes, we announced that we would be restarting Room Selection later that afternoon and would be keeping lottery number order intact,” Taylor wrote. “Since removing the Vacancy Viewer, we have experienced no further issues with the system during the remainder of Room Selection.”

King said she was forced to miss a class Feb. 23 in order to remain on the site and get the dorm she and her three roommates wanted, as the university had to push their time slots forward, according to Taylor. 

“This did mean that the Room Selection time slots would be pushed back a bit, but it was most important for us that we keep lottery number order in place to ensure students impacted by the server issues did not see a change in their overall priority,” Taylor said. 

King, who currently lives in Mertz Hall, said she was still able to secure a spot in Santa Clara Hall, her desired dorm for next year. King said the university should be responsible for finding housing for all admitted students in a straightforward and error-free way. 

Loyola admitted about 800 more first-year students for the 2022-23 school year than they have in previous years, leading the dorms to near maximum capacity for the first time since before the pandemic, The Phoenix previously reported. 

Taylor said the university is making amendments to the website in order to ensure students in the coming years are able to select their housing without any issues. 

“The Residence Life team provided multiple avenues of support to students and families via office hours, email and phone calls if there were any concerns,” Taylor wrote. “As we plan for the future, we will be enhancing our strategies and marketing materials to assist students throughout the room selection process.”

Featured image by Holden Green