This past year, nearly 85 percent of 145 total transfer applications were successful--a percentage in line with, if slightly higher than, that of past years.

Part of the lack of change in the rate of transfers may have to do with the College's strict restrictions on entrances to and exits from Houses. Each House sets a cap on how many students of each gender and class year can transfer in.

Students who want to transfer from their House as individuals, or as part of a group whose members are all from the same House, can eliminate two Houses into which they would not like to be moved.

Groups of transferring students from multiple Houses can cross off three choices--one of which must be a House where a member of the transfer group lives.

Those who simply want to join a rooming group in another House, on the other hand, can attempt to transfer if a space opens up in a room in that House or if the rooming group agrees to host the transfer in its existing suite.

What's more, the Undergraduate Housing Office gives priority first to those who have unsuccessfully applied for transfers before and then to students based on seniority.

According to Associate Dean of the College for Human Resources and the House System Thomas A. Dingman '67, the College also makes an attempt to preserve class and gender balance in the Houses.