Meredith L. Schweig ’03 (L) and Benjamin I. Schapira ’04 (R) sport Pfoho pride outside Annenberg yesterday. House representatives gathered with banners and cheers to welcome newest members.

With sparkling apple cider, elephants, rabbits and colorful posters, cheering upperclass students welcomed hundreds of first-years to their future Houses at Annenberg Hall yesterday afternoon.

As they filed into Annenberg, first-years pulled on T-shirts advertising their future places of residence.

Many upperclass students, who chose to return to Annenberg for lunch yesterday, ran through the dining hall with House names painted on their bare chests while chanting slogans and mock-bashing other Houses.

One Eliot House resident dressed up in an elephant costume and a Leverett House resident dressed up as a rabbit.

Currier House members proudly displayed an Australian Shephard dog in a Currier t-shirt.

First-years who were assigned to Adams House were conspicuously absent during the Annenberg festivities—they were attending a special lunch at the Adams dining hall, where women received roses and the men were given cigars.

As first-years alternately rejoiced and bemoaned their fates, the news they received yesterday demonstrated once again that the College’s randomized House assignment policy does not seem to respond to even the wildest ploys.

The Fated Envelope

In the hours before she learned of her housing assignment, Meagan M. Marks ’05 went looking for boys named Adam, Lowell or Eliot to kiss her, in the hopes that it would increase her chances of getting assigned to a river house.

Marks’ blockmates had even put down fake concentrations on their housing application forms, hoping that “artsy” concentrations would lead to a future in Adams House.

But at 8 a.m. yesterday morning, her hopes were dashed.

“Maybe we didn’t perform our rituals well enough,” said Marks, who will be calling Dunster home for the next three years.

But she said “anything was better than the Quad” and that she shared common interests with Dunster House.

“I used to go out with goat-herders before. How cool is it that Dunster had a goat roast!” she said.

Members of blocking groups in Canaday’s C-entryway had mixed results. The night before the assignments were delivered to their doorsteps, they sailed cardboard boats on the Charles River before setting them on fire.