The Hill apartment buildings on the Mount Carmel campus will be offered exclusively to sophomores for the first time next semester.

Students who paid their housing deposits were notified of this change via e-mail on March 15, 2010.

For their sophomore living arrangements, current freshmen will be offered Mountainview, The Village, Complex 90s and now, The Hill.  Consequently, all of the Mount Carmel’ campus’ dorms will be used to house underclassmen.

Junior housing includes The Crescent and Westview at the Crescent, both located on the York Hill campus.

Sophomore Brian Connolly was planning on living in The Hill next year and is now annoyed he will no longer be able to simply walk to his classes.

“I was pretty upset,” he said. “I wish I could be living [in The Hill],” Connolly said.  “It’s a great facility and on campus, it’s very convenient to go to the Café and classes.”

Associate Director of Residential Life Melissa Karipidis had not commented on the housing situation at press time.

Sophomore Neil Mammele wanted to remain on the Mount Carmel campus next year and thinks the situation is “unfair to juniors.”

“Like most students I am obviously skeptical about living up at York Hill next year because I feel like I’m situated pretty well on the main campus now,” Mammele said. “It is also going to be tough going from living in a nice new Village room, which I consider to be like an apartment, back to living in tight dorm-like rooms.”

Mammele is on the baseball team and it would have been “a lot easier” to get to early practices and games if he lived in The Hill.

“We were upset because we weren’t notified until our lottery numbers actually came out,” he said.  “We tried to reach out to RAs and [RHDs] but nobody had a definite answer until we saw our housing options when out numbers came.”

His teammate, sophomore Kyle Nisson, was similarly “angry” when the option was taken away to live in The Hill.

“Besides the fact that we have all the classrooms down here on the main campus, I have practice down here and we have early morning workouts that we have to get up for to come to the Rec Center here on campus,” Nisson said.

Nisson does not consider York Hill on-campus living.

“I am not happy that the only options are York Hill or off-campus housing,” he said. “We pay a lot of money a year to come to this school and we don’t even have a choice on where we want to live, I feel it is unfair.”

Freshman Abigail Airoldi is excited that The Hill has been added as a choice for her next year.

“I am definitely hoping to live in Hill next year, but competition seems to be pretty tough for that spot,” Airoldi said.  “Just like most other people, I love the idea of having a kitchen area. It would help supplement the pretty meager meal plan that we have now and would make it a lot easier to eat healthily.”

Airoldi mentioned her friends were excited about the idea of having a balcony.

“It is just a really quaint set-up,” she said. “The space is open and group-friendly.”

Of all the options, she considers The Hill to be the best and The Village as second because the area seems “a little closed off.”

Freshman Katherine Ray also hopes to live in The Hill.

“Based on external appeal, I like the looks of Village the most,” she said. “I also like the spread of Village, across campus. I wouldn’t want to live in Mountainview because it is too far away from the cafe and the classes. Hill is in a good central location.”

However, she was against making the whole campus underclassmen.

“I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but the Mount Carmel campus, because the other campuses would feel too isolated, and transportation/time needed for transportation would be a hassle.”

The housing lottery will take place next week.