Students experienced significant housing changes during the 2024-2025 school year, which saw the return of four-person rooms known as quads to Roble Hall. Building A of the graduate residences in Escondido Village also had fewer undergraduate options as it transitions back to graduate-only housing.

Many students who now live in the quad said that they find it difficult to live in such a tight space.

According to the Stanford report, Stanford’s Residential and Dining Enterprises has it started to transition EVGR this year by decreasing the amount of available undergraduate space in the building, which will continue to decrease in the coming years until it is fully returned to graduate housing. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only graduate students lived in EVGR-A.

For Chhavi Nahata ’26, a current EVGR-A resident, the plan to phase out apartment-style housing for students who had hoped to gain access to better living arrangements is a disappointment.

“I hope more students can experience EVGR because it’s really good housing and the dorms are not good. They have to be newer like EVGR,” said Nahata.

Tooba Riaz ’26, who lived in EVGR-B during the summer, said “the problem is with the current student housing system.”

Riaz said she doesn’t think the problem is housing moving students out of graduate student housing, but rather, she sees the problem as not having an adequate replacement.

Jocelyn Breeland, head of communications for R&DE, wrote to The Daily that while they will phase out students from EVGR-A, they will still make sure students receive housing.

“With an increased number of students after the pandemic, the decision was made to bring back the quads in Roble to ensure there are enough beds in the undergraduate residences,” Breeland wrote.

Breeland wrote that there is no direct correlation between license loads in the EVGR-A and Roble configurations. Undergraduate housing assignments involve several factors, such as the number of places available in undergraduate residence halls, the size of the undergraduate population and the increased demand for housing following the COVID-19 pandemic, she wrote.

Adjusting to four-person rooms was a challenge for students like Sienna Robinson ’27. He had originally wanted to live in a double room in either Meier or Norcliffe, but ended up with a quad in Roble. She said she felt the “claustrophobia” of her living situation intervened.

“The beds are literally touching, so my roommate’s feet and my head are a foot apart when I sleep at night,” Robinson said. She said it’s uncomfortable to sleep so close to someone and it can be difficult because of the lack of privacy.

Lula Jackson ’27 had a similar experience when she moved. She said she had a “mini-breakdown” when she first moved to Roble and initially thought she made a mistake trying to live on West Campus. She said the beds were touching each other, but since she left them bunked, she was able to create a space. The room is still very narrow and has limited storage space, Jackson said.

Students like Angelina Ambrosiou ’27 joined the housing portal during drop-in hours to find that a Roble quad was the only option available. When she moved in, she found that her sink door couldn’t open all the way because a bed was partially blocking it.

Ambrosiou was shocked when she first walked in and saw how cramped it was. She said she could definitely tell that the sizing was designed for a triple room double.

However, not all quads were a claustrophobic last resort. In Toyon, larger four-bed halls attract social students like Ahmed Zafar ’27.

“In the Toyon, the quads are actually bigger than the other rooms,” Zafar said. However, privacy is quite a challenge because time alone is limited, he said.

“I wanted to meet more people my sophomore year, so I thought a quad would help me achieve that,” Zafar said.