Elon University senior Julia Guilfoyle didn’t expect to have to drive two miles to class her last year of college. 

“I have to load everything up in the car that I’m going to need for the day. I might forget something, so I’ll have to try to find time to get back. Then I have to drive all the way over there lug it all the way across campus lug it all the way back to my car come back home lug it upstairs,” she said.

She is just one of the students affected by the university-wide housing selection system crash last year. According to Guilfoyle, her roommates and her were originally assigned to Mill Point before the online server crashed. Residence Life emailed them after the crash and said the signup process would restart, and they would lose their apartment.

“if it wasn’t going to be Mill Point, I wanted somewhere that I would still be happy in and a freshman dorm or a sophomore dorm wasn’t going to provide that same feeling for me,” she said.

Guilfoyle decided to live at The Retreat, a pet-friendly apartment complex about two miles away in Burlington. With no roommate, she pays $999 per month for a two bedroom apartment, compared to $773 per month in a four-person Mill Point apartment.

To avoid housing system glitches this year, Marquita Barker, senior associate director of Residence Life,  said the housing process was redesigned. Now, each student will have his or her own time slot to sign up under the room selection tab online. The goal, she said, is to lighten site traffic to avoid another crash.

“If there is another crash, residence life will quickly communicate with students,” Barker said. 

Barker said juniors and seniors will continue to sign up based on a combination of GPA and number of semesters living on campus. Sophomores, however, will now sign up with a random time assigned to them. She said if there’s another crash, Residence Life will quickly communicate a solution with students.

The housing selection process officially kicked off February 26. Students living in the station at mill point or park place renewed their contracts. February 28 juniors and seniors can sign up for the station at mill point until spaces fill. February 29 all other juniors and seniors begin signing up for park place until spaces fill.

Sophomores begin the housing process March 27 through the 28 for apartments, and March 29 through the 30 for residence halls.

For more information, visit www.elon.edu/residence life.