Interhouse Committee

Rotation Rules

To go back to the abridged rules click here: Basic Rules
To see the full rules with annotations, click here: Full Rules with notes

I. Rotation Code

The spirit of Rotation is to allow new students and Houses to arrive at accurate representations of each other. Following this serves the purpose of best matching new students with Houses.

II. Preamble

The rotation system has evolved over the years as the best methode to distribute new students among the Houses. Each new student is given a voice in selecting the House he or she will join, and the Houses have some say in choosing their members. The motivation behind these rules is the Honor System. The intention is to prevent both the Houses and the new students from taking unfair advantange of any other House or new student. All undergraduates are responsible for understanding and following these rules, and just as with the Honor Code, ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for violating them.

III. The Four Laws of Rotation

These Four Laws are meant to be the guiding principles of Rotation. They are second in importance only to the Rotation Code, and the spirit of Rotation embodied therein.

1. Rotation participants are prohibited from unfairly biasing new students toward or against a House in a way that violates the Honor Code or goes against the spirit of Rotation.

2. Upperclassmen may not provide special or extraordinary favors or services to new students. This includes alcohol and other psychoactive and controlled substances.

3. No upperclassman or new student should discuss rating strategies or past or future student picks procedures.

4. Any remaining questions or concerns must be addressed by the IHC (ude.hcetlac.scgu@noitator) .

IV. Specific Regulations

1. Rotation rules are in effect for any contact with new students from their initial acceptance to Caltech (including before they matriculate) until their submitted rating lists are considered accurate (as stipulated at 4:00 pm on Saturday of Rotation week).

2. Throughout these rules the term "House" refers to both the organization as a whole and any of its members.

3. New students are specifically prohibited from unfairly biasing other new students toward or against any House.

4. Houses are specifically authorized to do the following during Rotation:

   a. Have receptions after dinner
   b. Have open presentations anywhere on campus

5. Houses must receive prior approval before doing any of the following during Rotation:

   a. Sponsoring a trip off campus with new freshmen lasting longer than four hours

   b. Making a trophy or alley challenge

   c. Organizing and sponsoring a social event

6. Houses are specifically prohibited from doing the following during Rotation:

   a. Spreading stereotypes of other Houses

   b. Publishing a social calendar or relating in any fashion future social events, except during Prefrosh Weekend

   c. Attending a reception of a House of which you are not a full member without the permission of that House's President.

   d. Discussing with new students anything at all to do with rating strategies and past or future new student picks.

   e. Providing alcohol or other controlled or psychoactive substances to a new student.

   f. Spending money on a new student or providing extraordinary goods or services on credit or for no charge.

   g. Otherwise unfairly biasing a new student toward or against another House, or your own House.

   Aside from the specifically prohibited acts, Houses may do anything approved of by the IHC in advance of the act.

V. Procedures

1. Rotation week begins on the Saturday prior to the first week of the term and ends after the following Saturday.

2. Throughout the course of Rotation week, new students will remain in residence at a randomly determined temporary room assignment in one of the Houses.

3. For the eight days of Rotation week, (Friday through Friday) each new student visits a different House for dinner in a randomly determined order. New students also visit the Houses for lunch and two evening snacks; the day that they eat lunch in a given house is determined by when they eat dinner in that house, as determined by the following mapping (if two meals have the same letter, a new student eats in the same house for both meals):

	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
House visited at lunch:		E	B	(none)	G	A	B	C	H*
House visited at dinner:		A	F	C	D	E	F	G
House visited at evening snack:	D	H*

*This is the House in which the new student is temporarily living.

The 8 bolded letters denote waited dinners with receptions before and after. The non-bolded letters denote dinners that are unwaited and do not have receptions.

The schedule of rotation meal times is here.

4. Any new student who does not attend lunch or dinner or does not check in with the House Rotation Chair will be defined as a "no-show" for that house, and will be considered to have ranked all eight Houses equally.

5. All new students must rate all eight of the Houses and submit a list of those preference to the Resident Associate (RA) of the House in which they are residing. New students will rate all eight Houses on an integer scale from 1 (this House is a good fit) to 21 (this House is a bad fit). No student may assign the same rating number to multiple Houses. This information will be given to each House President and shall be made available only to the House Rotation chairmen, only after all changes are finalized. The Houses are not required to follow the ratings submitted by each student. Students living outside of the eight Houses must submit ratings to the RA of the House which they visit on the final Saturday of Rotation week. Exceptional circumstances will be taken into consideration by the IHC, and in extreme circumstances, new students who state to the Director of Campus Life that they do not wish to participate in Rotation will not be selected by any House, but such new students will still be given Institute housing.

6. On the final Saturday of Rotation week, the RA of each House will provide rating sheets to all of the new students dining at their House that day. From 2:00 to 4:00 PM, the RA will be available at a place made known to the new students. During that time, the new students must give their ratings to the RA. The RA will enter the student's ratings and then confirm them with the student before submitting them. At 4:00 PM, the IHC will compile the list and check to ensure that all ratings have been submitted. Every effort possible will be made to obtain any missing ratings. Only the IHC will have access to the list until it is finalized. After the list is complete, the IHC Chairman will declare the list finalized, and at that time, the House Presidents may disclose the results to their House Rotation Chairmen.

7. Selection of new students will take place at a closed meeting of the Interhouse Committee Chairman and Secretary, the eight House Presidents, up to four Rotation Chairmen from each House, the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs and Campus Life, and the Master of Student Houses. This meeting will occur on the Sunday immediately following Rotation week. All information relating to this meeting will not be made public. Following the meeting, the Houses will immediately destroy all their electronic or written information relating to the meeting.

VI. Penalties

1. An action which any student thinks is a violation of the Rotation rules must be reported to a member of the IHC

2. Alleged violations will be tried by the IHC; a five out of eight vote is sufficient for conviction.

3. Any House or individual who is found to have violated these rules will be penalized by any one of the following:
    a. Probation
    b. Loss of right to House rating (i.e., new student will be considered to have chosen all eight Houses equally.)
    c. Loss of picks
    d. Loss of privilege to live on campus
    e. Loss of that House's Off-Campus Alley
    f. Any other punishment handed down by the IHC