Simmons and Maseeh remain top first dorm choices for first years, desirable FYRE destinations
7.9 percent of first years moved using FYRE
Simmons, Maseeh, and Baker have remained the most popular choices for the First Year Housing Lottery this year, as with last year. In this year’s First Year Residence Exchange (FYRE), which was completed Aug. 29, New House, Simmons, and Maseeh sported the lowest FYRE-out to FYRE-in ratios, while McCormick, MacGregor and East Campus had the highest.
“FYRE is the opportunity for students to, after the First Year [Housing] Lottery happens, switch into a different building if they arrive here at campus and find that they want to live in a different building,” Jennifer Hapgood-White, director of residential services, said in an interview with The Tech. “It gives them the opportunity to make that switch before classes and academics really start.”
About 12 percent of the Class of 2022 utilized FYRE this year, which is comparable to last year’s rate of 11 percent. Of the 139 first years who utilized FYRE, 64 percent moved — an increase from the 59 percent move rate in 2017.
In terms of total number of applications submitted, the most first-years wished to FYRE into Maseeh, followed by Simmons and Burton Conner, and the most first-years wished to FYRE out of MacGregor, followed by East Campus and Burton Conner.
This year’s First Year Housing Lottery and FYRE were the first after the complete reopening of New House. Last year, New House was undergoing renovations and partially closed. This year, about 60 percent more students chose New House as their first choice as compared to 2016 and 2015, and New House sported the lowest FYRE-out to FYRE-in ratio this year.
“As my personal opinion, I would guess that a brand-new building has some draw,” Hapgood-White said. “Any time you open something new and create a new space with new air conditioning, new lounge spaces, new everything, it draws more people to it. I also noticed students in New House were very active in trying to get people to want to live in their house.”
FYRE data referenced in this piece was provided to The Tech by the Division of Student Life.
“FYRE represents something really important in MIT housing, which is choice,” Matt Bauer, director of communications for the Division of Student Life, said in an interview with The Tech. “FYRE is a rare and special thing, and a pleasure for us to work with students from the housing side to give them the opportunity to find what they perceive as being the right fit for them in terms of their living situation.”