As of April 6th, the portal for Trinity College’s new online housing lottery system is now open. Now, instead of waiting in agony in the Washington room for hours, we can just click a few buttons and let technology do the work. The only problem is – the online housing portal app may be a little tricky to navigate at first. Some might say that I’m not the best person to ask for advice on housing (as someone who’s used a proxy every year since I’ve been at Trinity), but after a little studying, I think I finally figured it out. Here’s what you need to do:
- Go to your Trinity portal account homepage. Select community, then general. In the middle column, you should see a link that says Access the Lottery System. Click that. Now, you’ll be redirected to the Online Lottery homepage. You can find your lottery number here. Go to the top right hand corner and click Lottery App
- Before logging into the lottery app, you must check the box at the bottom of this page, stating that you agree to the terms and conditions of the Trinity College housing system.
- Now, you’re at your app homepage. If you plan on living in a single, see step 4. If you plan on living in a double, quad, suite, or townhouse, see step 5.
- Single: click on the default housing option, single. Select your desired dorm and room, and press submit. See step 6.
- Multiple roommates: *Note: only one roommate has to create the group. Click on create new group towards the bottom of your screen. The next page will prompt you to select the number of members that will be in your preferred room (2 for a double, 3 for a triple, 4 for a quad, etc.). Type in the names of your roommates in the space below to “invite” them to the system. They must ALL accept the invite in order for your housing request to be processed.
- You can create as many housing options as you want – but be sure to arrange the list in order of your housing preferences. You can arrange your preferences using the drop down bar to the right. If you do NOT want a single to be on your housing preference wish list, make sure to unclick the active box.
Now what happens? You wait until April 12th, the first day of the housing lottery assignments. The process take place in seven runs (one run per day) according to average lottery number. The best part about this is each day you can check to see which rooms are already taken, and revise your wish list accordingly. Just remember: go in prepared, and may the odds be ever in your favor!