“It’s pretty traditional, like what you would see on TV, except we don’t use the little spinny balls, and the little sucking things,” John Boshoven, a counselor at Community said, when asked about the Community lottery. Many who are looking to apply to Community know that incoming students are selected through a lottery. The exact details of this lottery, and how it is run, however, are not as widely known.

Unfortunately, in all reality, the lottery isn’t as glamorous as some would think.

John Boshoven explained how the lottery is run. First, all the names of the students that have applied are written down on a piece of a paper, folded in half, and then put in a basket. Then corresponding numbers for all the students are put in a different basket. If three hundred student applied, then the numbers in the second basket go one through three hundred. “One person draws a name, and one person draws a number. So the number is random and the name is random. And then a third person staples them together.. Then we have the name and the number, and someone writes them down. Then we put those aside, and start over again.”

“It’s very archaic, very time consuming, very silly and old-fashioned. We do it the old-fashioned way with witnesses, just like on Groundhog Day.” John Boshoven said. “It takes more time and more people than it’s worth, but it is what it is.”