I wish I had researched the housing situation more before coming to LSU.

I didn’t realize it was so difficult to obtain on-campus housing, so it was a major shock when I discovered how coveted the East and West Campus Apartments and Nicholson Gateway apartments were among students.

Coming from out-of-state, I knew I wanted to live near campus. I don’t have a car, so being able to walk to class was a requirement for me. Because of this, my current roommate and I decided to apply for an on-campus apartment. 

I wasn’t expecting the website to crash within minutes of applications going live. They decided to let everyone who wanted to apply for an apartment apply at the same time – on a Tuesday at 10 a.m. 

My roommate and I both had work or school at that time, and weren’t expecting the application process to take longer than five minutes. We could not have been more wrong.

At 10 a.m. on the dot, we both sat on opposite sides of campus, our laptops ready to click on the link. As soon as we did, a message appeared: “SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG. An unknown error occurred.”

After more than half an hour of frustration, we were still unable to get into the application portal. When I was finally able to successfully click the link an hour later it prompted me to join the waitlist.

I’m not the only one to encounter this problem. Dozens of anxious students and worried parents went to the private LSU Students and Parents Facebook group to voice their complaints about the housing portal and the scramble for housing that was still walking distance from campus began.

Still, I was determined to get an on-campus apartment, mostly because I didn’t want to have to pay rent over the summer when I wouldn’t be in Louisiana. The waitlist opened two weeks later, and I was ready this time – I had the tab opened and was ready to click at lightning speed. 

After a few frustrating failed login attempts, my roommate and I were finally able to get on the waitlist, but it wasn’t easy. It’s as if LSU was trying to make it as difficult as possible to get an apartment, with the confusing portal layout, and some apartment options not showing up completely.

Even after jumping through all the hurdles, LSU Residential Life told my roommate they might not be able to offer us an answer until June. By then, most off-campus apartment complexes would likely be full.

My roommate and I were lucky — we did eventually get an apartment. While I was happy about this, I couldn’t help but feel like LSU should make the on-campus apartments more accessible to students. If I knew it would be so difficult, I would have started searching for other options earlier on.

LSU needs a better system than this. There’s no reason it has to be this difficult to live on campus. At the very least, they need to be upfront with students about the difficulty to obtain an on-campus apartment.

And if there’s just not enough on-campus housing, maybe that’s something LSU should invest in.

Gabby Jimenez is an 18-year-old political communication freshman from San Antonio, TX.