A recent glitch inside the AccessPlus housing system has left many students confused and worried about their future housing accommodations.

On Monday, the first day that four-person apartments could be claimed under Iowa State housing, AccessPlus was temporarily overloaded, leaving some residents without a place to live.

“Right now, we don’t know why or how the shutdown happened,” said Brittany Rasmussen, hall director for lower Friley. “We had a high amount of people on the site but we don’t know what caused it. Our IT department is working on that at this moment,”

If students have questions they should contact the residence department for help, Rasmussen said.

The unexpected closure of AccessPlus is worrisome for students who have yet to confirm a housing option.

“So now we are on a waiting list, and we want university housing for sure so it’s kind of scary for us and our parents because we’re thinking what if we don’t get housing, then are we gonna have to do something off campus?,” said Zakia Brown, sophomore in psychology.

Brown currently lives off campus at Maricopa in University West, where she believes there was not enough adequate communication between the school and those not living in dorms.

“They definitely did not do a good job of telling us things,” Brown said. “I lived in a dorm my freshman year, so I constantly saw posters telling us the dates for moving out, recontacting, etc. I know I got a few emails early on, but they weren’t close to the deadline and there weren’t any specific dates.”

The eventual overload of AccessPlus resulted from a high number of student logging in at one time, most of whom were not looking to find an apartment.

“What we think happened is that a number of students were informed that they could log in and update their room assignments even though some already had assigned housing,” said Carol McDonald, director of IT services and university info systems. “In other words, moving around within their current assignment. With any application where many students are trying to get on at the same time, the system can become overloaded.”

With the number of students attending Iowa State growing at a rapid rate, as well as the number of incoming students, some students see upperclassmen as a priority for housing.

“All upperclassmen need to have guaranteed housing before freshmen,” said  Keesha Gaines, sophomore in kinesiology and health occupational therapy who was also shut out of the access plus system. “They need to stop allowing so many people to come in when there’s clearly not enough room.”

The ISU IT department said it is aware of the issues students have been experiencing and hopes changes can be made in the future to help alleviate these problems.

“We strive to make sure to accommodate the residence hall processes,” McDonald said. “We had an experience that nobody wants but could certainly happen across the board. Looking forward we are looking to upgrade all the online systems including residence. We would love it to be flexible and be able to handle all of the campuses processes.”