“I’m so excited for Housing Day.”

My blockmates and I were sitting around the common room of my suite in Thayer at seven in the morning. After the stresses of putting together our blocking group, we couldn’t wait to live together in one of Harvard’s 12 upperclassmen Houses the following year. As sounds of cheering reached our ears early that Thursday morning, we hurried to the window to see hordes of upperclassmen rush into the yard from all directions.

As we waited, we remembered the past few months of conversations with upperclassmen about House life. We were impressed that these students felt passionate enough about their Houses to talk about them at length, to wear their gear, to play in intramurals, to spend hours on Housing Day videos, and to run outside during a freezing winter morning to welcome freshmen into their community.

“You just won the lottery.”

Looking back out the window, we saw that the various crowds of cheering upperclassmen had dispersed across the Yard to carry news of the housing lottery to eager freshmen. The sounds of knocking and yelling echoed up and down Thayer while my blockmates caught glimpses of each House’s cohort through the door’s peephole.

And then, the knock sounded on our door. I peeked through the eyehole one last time, and my shoulders slumped. When I told my roommates Cabot had come to call, one joked that we shouldn’t open the door, but ultimately we did. The Cabotians rushed into the suite flinging Swedish Fish across the room as we looked upon them with little expression. When the group departed, my blockmates and I were left with a sweets-covered floor and sour faces.

My blockmates and I soon parted ways to carry on with our days—classes and, in my case, midterms awaited. As I encountered my freshman peers we shared news of our fortunes. Responses to my announcement of Cabot ranged from the excited to the commiserative—I would be all right, I could transfer after a year, some told me. It was these sentiments that I found particularly hard to process. Between the upperclassmen conversations I had heard earlier in the year, and the looks upon the faces of my peers, my expectations for life in Cabot were low.