spectrum: the shaft

Thursday marked the end of in-person housing selection for all groups of rising seniors and rising juniors. For the remaining rising juniors and all rising sophomores, the options include—but are not limited to—600 W. 113th (Nussbaum), McBain Hall, Broadway Hall, Schapiro Hall, and Wien Hall, as well as some remaining suites in Ruggles Hall and Carlton Arms.

Listen up, rising juniors! Today marked Day Two of Columbia’s in-person housing selection, with all rising seniors and some mixed groups having chosen their homes for the next year.

Housing selection for Columbia College and SEAS students officially began yesterday! Today marked the first day of in-person housing selection and the majority of seniors have already chosen their dorms for next year, mostly opting for East Campus, Hogan, Watt and Woodbridge. If you want to stay updated throughout the day, check out Shaft Live as well as the liveblog.

Happy first day of in person housing selection for Columbia! Stay updated via Shaft Live , and get the inside scoop from John Jay Lounge with the Shaft liveblog!

Finally. After three years of housing wins and woes, you’ve made it to the pinnacle of Columbia Housing Room Selection: 30 glorious, hard-earned points of selection priority. Whether you’ve had your heart set on that one East Campus townhouse you stepped foot in during September of first year or have been patiently awaiting a blissful one-bedroom in Watt Hall, it’s good to reacquaint yourself with your options before heading into the final Room Selection of your college years.

Each year, more students will be in the housing lottery than spaces available—meaning that as a sophomore, you might not find any available spaces if you have a bad lottery number. Don’t freak out yet! We can assure you that Columbia will not leave you out on the streets next year, which is why the Columbia Sophomore Waitlist and Barnard Guaranteed List were put in place to ensure housing for those unlucky sophomores stuck with no available rooms.

‘Tis the season for housing selection. After finally deciding who you want to room with next year, you and your group are probably compiling a checklist of all of the things you want in a living space. It might be a specific social scene or location, or renovated facilities. Your group may want to live in a modern NYC high-rise or a more classic, trashy college dorm. Here is an updated list of recent dorm renovations and future projects at Columbia to help your group decide.

Every March, when the housing lottery comes around, what students find the most daunting is not where they will be living, but rather who will be in their housing group. Finding a group can be one of the most stressful part of the housing process. What happens when you are just one person short of snagging a spot in Plimpton? Or what if your group is larger than the average suite? Here are all of the different housing options for groups of one to eight people at both Barnard and Columbia.

Well, it’s that time of year again: time to start thinking about where you want to live next year. And with housing groups already being formed, drama beginning, and friend groups breaking apart one argument at a time, we thought it’d be helpful to provide a quick rundown of dorm reputations to help you make the most informed housing decision. From the grossest dorms to the loudest dorms, here's a list of Columbia and Barnard housing superlatives.