Forget your spring break or reading period travel plans. There is a much more pressing decision that you and your friends must make in your group chats: blocking.
As is customary every year, Harvard first-years must sort themselves into “blocking groups” of up to eight people to participate in the housing lottery and get randomly assigned a House community that they will be part of for the remainder of their undergraduate experience. This year, first-years have until February 28th, 2024, to choose their blocking groups ahead of Housing Day on March 7th, 2024.
With the deadline approaching fast, most first-years have already begun having some difficult, brutally honest conversations about splitting their friend groups into blocking groups. An anonymous first-year, referred to by the pseudonym “Emily,” described the struggles of splitting a ten-person friend group into two five-person blocking groups. “As much as we all wanted to live together, the numbers didn’t work, so we had to force each other to be honest about which group of five we felt more compatible with,” she said.
Although living and personality compatibility were important factors to bring up in the blocking discussion, Emily went on to mention that being close friends with her blockmates was an important requirement for her. “It turned out that one person wanted to bring her other friends into whichever group of five she ended up in, and the rest of the group did not since they weren’t close friends with her other friends, so she ended up leaving the blocking group,” she explained.
Helen Blake ’26 also blocked with people she was already friends with—including her first-year roommate. She noted that sometimes these stressful blocking conversations can be a good thing. “It means that you’re being honest or approaching the blocking group process from an angle in which you’re prioritizing what you need, which isn’t always easy,” she mentioned.
Blake went on to say that, ultimately, forming your blocking group should not be the end-all, be-all of your life. “If forming your blocking group is so incredibly stressful, then maybe it’s worth it to take a step back, breathe, and think about what—and who—matters most.”
Blake’s advice is something that Emily says she has learned after finalizing her blocking group. “Although there were a few tears shed because people felt scared to say that they felt more compatible with one person over another, I feel like blocking made our friend group stronger and more willing to honestly communicate,” she admitted.
Another element to these already daunting blocking discussions is the fact that linking—which allowed two different blocking groups to be guaranteed housing in the same campus neighborhood—has been eliminated. This recent decision from the College is intended to make the lottery system “more fair and equitable,” said Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo, and respond to the increase in the undergraduate population of gap year students in the Class of 2025 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
An anonymous junior who was placed into overflow housing in response to the Class of 2025’s unprecedented large size shared her concerns about “los[ing] that sense of community” as a result of overflow and linking being discontinued. “Linking was great… If you couldn’t put eight people in your blocking group, you had at least eight more people in a different house and you could explore that house too,” she explained.
However, she urged first-year students to not be scared at the prospect of being placed in overflow housing or even deciding to eschew blocking groups and “float” as a blocking group of one. “I decided to float [and] it was great,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of anxiety surrounding floating and I think that it’s no big deal [because] you can just live with a random person like you did freshman year… A lot of people are individual blocking groups and we meet a lot of good, really cool people [in the Houses].”
Above all, linking or no linking, overflow housing or regular housing, the College has made it a point to emphasize the fact that blocking should be an exciting time in your Harvard experience. Although these sometimes stressful conversations are important to have, you should not let them consume your every thought, especially since blocking groups do not necessarily determine your sophomore year roommates. In fact, as the College points out, blocking only ensures that you are in the same house as your blockmates, not that you must dorm with them.
Instead of letting possible blocking stress get to you, remember to focus on the positive aspects of finding a new, supportive community that will be by your side for the next three years and making memories with your friends—blockmates and non-blockmates—on Housing Day. As Blake said, “You will make new friends, you will find a different community, and you will be okay… The real ones will trek to the Quad for you.”
Ava Rem ’27 (avarem@college.harvard.edu) had her difficult blocking conversation in Berg two weeks ago and lived to tell the tale.