Although more students have asked for House rooms than ever before, the system will not expand beyond its present bursting-point capacity, Dean Watson said yesterday. He would not indicate what plans the Administration has for what looks like a critical housing shortage next fall.

At the present time, there are 172 more applicants for space than the Houses call accommodate. While the normal processes of attrition may reduce this figure considerably, there will be many men returning to the College unannounced from the service or from leaves of absence, and they too will want rooms. Also there is a good possibility that more commuters than the 40 who have already indicated so well apply for admission to a House, Watson said.

For the first three or so weeks of next fall, each House will have its own "barracks" facilities, instead of the central barracks in the IA/B or other places used in the past as temporary quarters.

Use Special Rooms

While some Houses will set aside certain rooms for use as barracks until reassignment is completed, others will have students sleep on couches or cots set up in rooms already in use. These arrangements are necessary because Masters do not want to assign strangers as roommates to House occupants.

Last year at this time there were 132 men for whom the system has no room. But there is one important difference between the two situations; in the fall of 1954, the Houses increased their capacity by 62 places over 1953's 2,800. Now there simply is no more room.

This expansion took place with no growth in the physical size of the system, and at the price of assigning 12 sophomores to empty spaces in the Business School. Next fall, however, the Business School will also be plagued by overcrowding, according to Watson.