"I believe that the goals of randomization will be fulfilled better with the new blocking group size," he added.

Council member M. Kate Richey '03, however, said that a smaller blocking group size would cause students to have less interaction with the rest of their Houses.

"With eight we stick even closer to these eight and do not branch out to as many people," she said.

Rampell and Richey said that a smaller size will also limit co-educational blocking, claiming that most of the first-year blocking groups being formed are single-sex. Students must decide on their blocking groups by March 15.

Another argument for smaller blocking groups is to prevent large single-interest groups--such as football players--from blocking together, Rampell said.

Rampell called this argument "preposterous," however, saying that few sports have 16 first-years each season. He said a small blocking group size would increase the number of blocking groups whose members are from a single team.

But according to Shinagel, small, homogeneous blocking groups are not a problem.

"A blocking group of eight is large enough to accommodate friends and people with special interests," he wrote.