Can you imagine what it would be like living here next year?
Hey, knock on wood – don’t jinx us getting quadded.
Conversations centered around Harvard housing dominate Harvard first-years’ lunch conversations, text exchanges, and dorm hang-outs. The prospect of finally escaping the confines of Canaday’s red carpets or Straus’ slanted ceilings is oh-so appealing for the first-year Harvard student. First-years spend their spring semesters finalizing blocking groups, participating in drinking rituals to game the randomized upperclassman housing assignments, and eagerly awaiting their fate on Housing Day. Finally being able to participate in Harvard’s housing system is a treasured right of passage.
While different from each other, Harvard and Yale’s housing systems are unique from most universities around the world. Both systems randomly sort students into one of 12 dorms which are called “Houses” at Harvard and “Residential Colleges” at Yale. Similarly, both universities cluster their freshmen dorms in a central location on the campus—the Yard for Harvard and the Old Campus for Yale. Broadly speaking, these systems are nearly identical, but the two housing models differ in significant ways, with Harvard’s residential system allowing for more freedom, flexibility, and fun.
On Housing Day, Harvard first-years anxiously await a knock at their door to signal their housing assignment for the next three years. But for our Yale counterparts, their housing fates are decided long before they embark on their freshman year. In Yale’s model, freshmen are notified of their four-year housing assignment weeks before move-in day. Harvard’s housing system beats Yale’s tradition of residential colleges, which both limits student choice and has a negative effect on freshmen integration with the student body.
Yale’s housing system requires students to spend all four years living along their randomly assigned cohort. Most first-years reside on Old Campus in dormitories designated to specific colleges. Students live in their Colleges starting sophomore year. Yalies assert that students should only be allowed to find “your people” within the confines of a Residential College. On the other hand, Harvard first-years are able to choose their sophomore living companions, known as their “blocking group.” Yet the beginning of our Harvard careers are supposed to be uncomfortable and messy. Pushing ourselves to meet new people outside of our entryways and dorms is what allows us to find meaningful, true connections with people we are compatible with. Blocking groups are self-selected groups of one to eight first-years who are guaranteed to be placed into the same house come Housing Day in the spring. “Blocking groups” allow for more natural friendships unconstrained by the College.
With proctors, residential deans, and peer advising fellows who solely focus on the first-year experience, Harvard’s current housing system places an additional, intentional emphasis on taking care of their students, especially first-years, throughout the undergraduate experience. There are advantages to having resources and staff dedicated only to first-years—something Yale doesn’t offer. One of the more significant differences in the Yale Residential College model is their undergraduate advising system. Instead of living alongside graduate students, as Harvard first-years do, Yale freshmen reside with freshman counselors (“FroCos”) who are seniors at the College. There is an inherent lack of authority placed within these proctors as a result of the small age gap.
Undeniably, it’s hard to not acknowledge the isolation that students without blocking groups may face, especially with the recent decision to eliminate linking groups. Yet Harvard students ultimately will interact more than just blocking group mates. While it is true that blocking groups aim to create communities, it is also a process that offers a broader, more exciting college residential experience. Yale doesn’t require students to live on campus for all four years, and while for some, this provides an increased degree of flexibility, for most, they are isolated from their peers in an immense way. Juniors and seniors at Yale have the availability to choose to live off campus. Harvard’s housing system allows for students of all grades to fluidly interact, something Yale’s Residential College system doesn’t offer.
Considerations and comparisons like this are important as we reflect and grow as an institution, but, generally, as I look towards the spring semester, I couldn’t be more excited to proudly engage with the College-wide celebration of Housing Day, an event that I’m sure Harvard students would be reluctant to give up.
Rania Jones ‘27 (rjones@college.harvard.edu) has awkwardly begun initiating blocking group conversations.