Having just hired the 2018-2019 resident advisor staff, Spring Hill College’s Residence Life is moving onto its next big project: the process of housing selection. A year after reshaping it, Residence Life is preparing the process for its second year, but with a slight change.

There will be one minor change taking place this year: every residential student will be selecting their housing for next fall on the same day. Before, the process occurred over a span of a week, with rising seniors choosing their housing a week before the rest of the student body.

The time of a student’s housing selection appointment will still be determined by their number of completed credit hours and their application submission time. Those with the most credit hours (typically rising seniors) and the earliest application submissions will be among the first to reserve their preferred room for the 2018-2019 academic year.

The current housing selection process was created last year by the director of Residence Life, Joy Morris, and a committee of students who served to represent the student body as a whole. There were many changes made by the committee, the biggest of which involved an entirely in-person housing selection process.

Joseph Mraz, an SHC junior, said, “I thought the new process was better. When I was a sophomore, it was really hectic because it was during finals week. [The new process] was much easier than sitting in front of a computer to make selections.”

Mraz said that he liked making his selections in person and that the new changes made the process go much smoother. Mraz also said what he believes is on every rising senior’s mind: “I would say that the Fairways Apartments are the most desired among seniors. There is going to be major demand for them.”

There are nine residence communities on campus, six of which will be open to rising upperclassmen. With the Fairways being the first choice among most seniors, Residence Life staff said that Portier Place and Mobile Hall will follow close behind as the most popular residence halls. To qualify for an apartment, a student must be a fourth-year college student and must have at least 94 credit hours.

Housing selection for the upcoming academic year will take place on April 8, 2018. The dates of interest meetings for residential students will be announced soon.