On Campus in second year

DaisyFay

This is beyond ridiculous at this stage. Since the start of summer, they posted 3 different dates for releasing information about how the booking process would change for this year, and since then, they've promised 6 updates, which haven't materialized. We applied for accommodation 4 weeks ago, and it should be organised for over 2 weeks by now. How can those in charge of the accommodation look at that amount of time, and that amount of errors, and not think that at this stage that they owe us more than the same update each day, with just the date changed?? All they've changed is the date, except today we get a sincere apology, instead of a normal one. Calling the office is useless, and so is emailing, because they have absolutely no information to give, not even a description of the 'technical issues'. For the amount of money they charge, and the amount of money they've got from the majority of those in the continuing undergrads category, we deserve a much better service. Also, the impression of the college they're giving to international students, who have no other experience of ucd, is of an extremely backwards college, run by a heap of idiots who are probably unemployable by anyone elses standards.

konks

shivpepper wrote: »

Would it be anymore use contacting UCD IT services directly rather than Res?

Couldn't hurt. I can't say I've ever heard of something like this happening at any other school...

GoldFour4

Really starting to think some focus on this from the national media is needed. Appalling way to treat us after increasing the price of accomodation

konks

malistheman wrote: »

Really starting to think some focus on this from the national media is needed. Appalling way to treat us after increasing the price of accomodation

At least that would make everyone aware and hopefully encourage them to actually do something or at least provide a competent update for once.

conroyxoxo

konks wrote: »

At least that would make everyone aware and hopefully encourage them to actually do something or at least provide a competent update for once.

Calling up Joe Duffy would be ideal at this point eh..

Scooples

We might have to bring out the big guns: Joe Duffy.

Scooples

conroyxoxo wrote: »

Calling up Joe Duffy would be ideal at this point eh..

Great minds think alike eh!!

conroyxoxo

Scooples wrote: »

Great minds think alike eh!!

What a lol.. If anyone has any links to the media/press they should definitely put the word out there about this monstrosity of a situation!

Caireann

malistheman wrote: »

Really starting to think some focus on this from the national media is needed. Appalling way to treat us after increasing the price of accomodation

I've emailed The Journal and The Mirror. I've read a few articles by them in the past complaining about UCD residences. I can't find an email for ucdsu though

Here's the emails if anyone is interested. It's probably better if they receive a few emails rather than just one complaint.

news@thejournal.ie
news@irishmirror.ie

Scooples

Yeah it'd be a good idea at this stage. Post screenshots of the page with all the updates and give them links for this thread and some tweets and that! For a top university they've really made a complete mess of this.

konks

Scooples wrote: »

Yeah it'd be a good idea at this stage. Post screenshots of the page with all the updates and give them links for this thread and some tweets and that! For a top university they've really made a complete mess of this.

Yeah this should be brought to everyones attention.

teotihuacan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUHunfH0XbI&feature=kp

Caireann

I received a reply for The Journal this morning. They seem keen :eek:

conroyxoxo

I emailed Res yesterday and just got a reply today saying the update was supposed to be yesterday only for a meeting between the IT services and residential management.. And also that an update will be at midday and we should receive an email of some sort... Then again who's to say that will actually happen considering everything else!

Scooples

conroyxoxo wrote: »

I emailed Res yesterday and just got a reply today saying the update was supposed to be yesterday only for a meeting between the IT services and residential management.. And also that an update will be at midday and we should receive an email of some sort... Then again who's to say that will actually happen considering everything else!

That sounds promising! Lets hope they follow through with it this time

F7Z

We continue to work to rectify the issue and sincerely apologise for any further inconvenience caused. We will post a further update Friday the 11th July 2014 at "12 noon"

^My moneys on this

Scooples

"Dear Student,

There was supposed to be an update today at midday, however talks between IT Services and the Residential Management have continued causing a delay with the update. Please expect an update later today.

An email should also be sent to your UCD Connect email address.

The update will be posted onto the How to Book a Room section of our website under your category.

The update will simply be an information update and does not imply that offers will be sent out immediately afterwards.


We do sincerely apologise for this delay."

Sounds like these talks aren't going so well! I wouldn't be surprised if they revert to the old system after all of this.

I got this today at 12.30 by the way.

Dapics

They really should have been better prepared when they were rolling out this new system.

Problems are expected to occur when something new is introduced but this qualifies as a massive ****-up. Also a friend of mine had theirs sent at 9:00:06 and was like 402 or something whereas I sent mine at 9:00:03 and was 417. I don't know whether applying those three seconds earlier would have really mattered.

Anyways, I've given up all hope on this.

P.S - Hey Danielle!

konks

Scooples wrote: »

"Dear Student,

There was supposed to be an update today at midday, however talks between IT Services and the Residential Management have continued causing a delay with the update. Please expect an update later today.

An email should also be sent to your UCD Connect email address.

The update will be posted onto the How to Book a Room section of our website under your category.

The update will simply be an information update and does not imply that offers will be sent out immediately afterwards.


We do sincerely apologise for this delay."

Sounds like these talks aren't going so well! I wouldn't be surprised if they revert to the old system after all of this.

I got this today at 12.30 by the way.

Completely unacceptable. It has been three weeks. There is no good excuse anymore.

Scooples

Dapics wrote: »

They really should have been better prepared when they were rolling out this new system.

Problems are expected to occur when something new is introduced but this qualifies as a massive ****-up. Also a friend of mine had theirs sent at 9:00:06 and was like 402 or something whereas I sent mine at 9:00:03 and was 417. I don't know whether applying those three seconds earlier would have really mattered.

Anyways, I've given up all hope on this.

P.S - Hey Danielle!

I don't know who this Danielle you speak of is, but hello "Harry" (extreme air quotes)

konks

Still nothing...Bleh

Alidee

This is a ridiculous inconvenience for everyone. I wish someone would come out and firstly apologize, then come up with a once and for all solution to this debacle. Surely this should not have taken a number of weeks to sort - it's not fair on anyone trying to get on with doing what they could be doing, whether it's enjoying the hols or keeping down a job, or struggling with an atrocious dial up broadband connection... C'mon UCD, get a grip!

Caireann

I'd encourage you guys to send an email to the media like I did. UCD won't like bad publicity being made readily available on the internet. It would discourage international students from the university, which is where they make most of their money. It might force them to actually apologise and do something beneficial for once

konks

Email has bee recieved.

It's going to be a random allocation. Good luck all!

This year UCD attempted to use an email system for the allocation of rooms on campus on a first come first served basis by receipt of email. Unfortunately, the process did not provide a reliable ranking. We apologise sincerely to all the students affected by this problem.

More than 10,000 emails from some 2,500 individual students were logged in the first three minutes but the system did not deliver a reliable ranking of emails as we had anticipated . We also discovered that a number of students’ emails were not included in the published ranking. Considerable efforts have been made to correct the ranking but the results are still inconsistent and we cannot validate the outcome.

Consequently, we have had to resort to a random allocation* of 638 room offers to the full list of names received up to the deadline of 5.00pm Friday 13 June. A copy of this email has been posted on the UCD Residences website.

conroyxoxo

konks wrote: »

Email has bee recieved.

It's going to be a random allocation. Good luck all!

At least we have some sort of update but does anyone else feel as disgusted with this random allocation lottery as I do? Having been in a good place before now my chances have diminished by a lot.

Caitdef

May the odds be ever in your favour.

Bacon and Cabbage

What's happening to the people who got an offer on the first day?

Caitdef

I'm not impressed, at all! I didn't have a great spot to begin with even though I had applied in good time. Now I'm up against 2,500+ people that might have only applied for the waitlist two days after me!

konks

Caitdef wrote: »

I'm not impressed, at all! I didn't have a great spot to begin with even though I had applied in good time. Now I'm up against 2,500+ people that might have only applied for the waitlist two days after me!

Yeah that's the annoying part...

Fiach M

They could at least randomly allocate to the people applied in the first minute or two, that would be fair...wouldnt it.
i dont see why they couldnt go through the inbox manually and pick the first 638 students. should we still lodge a complaint or do we just have to live with this