Are you unhappy with your Draw assignment? Consider yourself luckier than the 89 students who were guaranteed housing but are still unassigned.

Although this phenomenon might come as a shock to many students, it is a normal occurrence, according to Director of Housing Assignments Susan Nunan.

“This number of unassigned, guaranteed students is not out of the ordinary and is typical for year-to-year fluctuations,” Nunan said in an email to The Daily. “Eighty-nine guaranteed students were not assigned housing in the Draw this year, 31 more than last year. This is out of a total of almost 3,900 guaranteed students — less than a one percent change.”

There were 70 more applicants for the Draw this year than last — 94 more women and 24 fewer men. For women, 2847 was the cutoff number to receive a housing assignment; for men, it was 2878.

Nunan said that spaces typically open up during the summer “melt,” when students decide to go abroad, do not enroll for autumn quarter classes or live off-campus. There were almost 70 undergraduate housing vacancies last fall.

“Not all undergraduates are assigned housing in the first round Draw held in the spring of each year,” Nunan said. “In constructing and allocating housing spaces to meet student demand, we take into consideration not only the fixed number of physical spaces that are available for assignment, but also the spaces that will become available from drops over the summer.”

Unassigned students are instructed to join the autumn quarter waiting list by June 3, the results of which will be available on July 22. Students who remain unassigned after this round then participate in walk-ins on Aug. 22, Sept. 5, Sept. 12 and then every day until Oct. 26.

Nunan said that next year’s abnormally large freshman class will not impact Waiting List assignments because spaces for freshmen have already been reserved.

According to Nunan, students who were guaranteed housing usually receive an assignment by the start of the academic year.

“Under guaranteed housing policy, guaranteed students are guaranteed housing by the end of the first week of classes, though they are usually assigned before classes begin,” she said.

Rodger Whitney, executive director of Student Housing and chief housing officer, echoed Nunan’s assurances.

“In our many years of experience assigning students to housing, we have seen similar annual changes that we have accommodated without problem,” he said, “and we fully expect that all guaranteed students will be assigned housing, as always, by the start of school this fall.”

Though there are more students on the short end of the stick this year than last, the highest unassignment number in the past five years was in 2002, when 148 guaranteed students did not receive housing in the Draw’s first round. The number has been higher in the past, reaching 191 students in 1998.

Panayiota Christidis ‘09 is a member of a four-person group with a 2847 Draw number that did not receive an assignment in the first round of the Draw. One of her drawmates got into Storey because she had priority and decided to separate from the group but Christidis and the other two — one sophomore and one freshman — remain unassigned.

“I hope we end up close to each other because that’s what we wanted but I know it will all work out,” Christidis said. “We don’t have any closure, though, and we thought we would. I wish Stanford housing communicated more about the possibility of not getting assigned.”