On Tuesday, Jan. 31 at 9 a.m., the StarRez Housing Portal re-opened for students to apply for housing for the 2023-2024 academic year. And again, students were left feeling frustrated and angry. 

For some students, this time around, the application process was simple. The application appeared on their screens and they were able to click through the roommate questionnaire and housing preferences easily.

Madelyn Jamieson, a first-year Social Work major, says “When I clicked on the website and opened the link… it had popped up for me after about a minute of refreshing…I was done around 9:10 a.m., so it was relatively easy.” 

However, other students claimed that the application did not show up on the portal on their desktops at all. Although this was resolved for some by logging on on a different device, the application remained inaccessible to others. 

Christina Forester, a sophomore Social Work major, states “My roommate was right next to me and was trying [to access the application] on their phone and on their computer and it didn’t show up for 30 minutes…they were one of the last people to get it. This happened with multiple of my friends…one of my friends called Res Life three times and they didn’t answer.”

Around 9:10 a.m., the website once again began to crash showing error messages stating “something has gone wrong” and “service temporarily unavailable.” 

 Students who reached out to the Office of Residence Life (ORL) about the application problems via email received a response stating that “the application is on the website and students are able to apply. Please close your browser and clear your cache and re-log in. We recommend using google chrome [sic].” 

At 9:26 a.m., an email from the ORL was released, asking those who received their confirmation email for the housing application to log out of the portal to enable others to log in. 

Because there was no email sent out stating the portal was open and confirming that they were taking applications, many students assumed that the application would once again be voided. Due to this misconception, some are now left without housing with no alternative plan aside from applying for the waitlist. 

First-year Neuroscience and Behavior major Reagan Miller says, “I stopped trying to get into the website on different devices because I thought [the application] was going to get voided and then I realized at a certain point that it wasn’t going to get voided but by then it was already too late and I didn’t get housing.”

The ORL did not respond to multiple requests for comment.