He recalls, “The room was overheated, so I could barely sleep at night.”
He says he also disliked the House’s architecture and the food in its dining hall.
Though he misses his blockmates, he says, transferring to a different House has improved his Harvard experience.
Elaine D. Kim ’13 says she and her blockmates were apathetic when they were greeted by bunnies on Housing Day.
“Leverett is neither the best nor the worst House,” she says.
After living there for a year, Kim says she did not feel like a part of the House community. She decided to transfer. In ranking her choices, Kim says she considered factors including location, community, and rooms.
Shortly after, she received an email welcoming her to Kirkland. “The rooms in Kirkland are small, but it has a great community,” Kim says. “Leverett just wasn’t for me, and I am having a better experience in Kirkland.”
SECOND TIME AROUND
Each House sets a cap each year on the number of transfer students it accepts based on the space available in the House, according to Adams House Master John G. “Sean” Palfrey ’67.
“It is a two-way street with many unpredictable variables. Depending on how many new students Harvard sends us, how many transfers out [of the House] there are or leaves taken—spaces pop up for student transfers,” Palfrey says.
Alexa I. Stern ’12 and Joshua R. Wortzel ’13 were not so lucky on their first attempts to transfer Houses.
Wortzel’s blockmates were all women, and after a year in a single in Pforzheimer, he wanted to move to Lowell to room with a friend there.
When his first-round application was rejected, he talked to the resident dean of Lowell, who recommended that he apply again in the second round.
Likewise, Stern was the only woman in her blocking group. She submitted a transfer application from Currier to Leverett as a sophomore so she could live with a group of women in Leverett. When she found out her application had been rejected, she says she was “devastated.”
“I never thought about what I would do if I didn’t get out of Currier,” she says.
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