Daniel Zhao, Senior Photographer

The Yale student body was thrown into a frenzy last Tuesday after tickets were accidentally released for the annual football game between Yale and Harvard.

Now, with the 138th annual Yale-Harvard football game — colloquially known as “The Game”— fast approaching, students are scrambling to find housing accommodations in the Cambridge area.

Wolf Boone ’26, who said he secured a ticket to the game, is still trying to find a place to stay. 

“It’s a little stressful because I don’t have any friends at Harvard or in the Boston area, so I’m not sure who to ask or where to go to find housing accommodations,” Boone told the News. 

Typically, students have had the option to stay at their sister college at Harvard, usually being paired up with a random student. In a system akin to Yale’s residential college housing, Harvard has 12 houses, each with approximately 350 undergraduates. 

Last year, with the game held in New Haven, Yale announced that Harvard students would not be hosted overnight due to COVID-19 risk, breaking the usual tradition. This year, Elis will once again be able to stay at their residential college’s sister house at Harvard. 

Matthew Bray ’24, president of the Pierson College Council, has been in communication with Pierson’s sister, Harvard’s Lowell House, regarding student accommodations.

“The people from Lowell house reached out saying that up to 90 Pierson students can be accommodated, and I sent out an email in order to gauge interest among Pierson students,” Bray said.

Bray said that most Piersonites would stay in sleeping bags in the common area of Lowell House and that only a select few would be paired with a Harvard student to sleep in their dorm. 

He added that if more than 90 students demonstrate interest, he would have further conversations with them. 70 Pierson students have demonstrated interest so far. 

“If I tried to get hosted through Yale, they would probably assign me to some random kid, which would probably be super awkward,” Boone said. “I’d rather find a friend of a friend to stay with.”

With so many colleges in the Boston area, some students will be staying at other nearby schools.

Maryanne Xu ’26, says she would rather stay with friends at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology than be paired up with a random host. She added that she plans on heading to Massachusetts on Friday for the pre-Game festivities. 

Eric Kalimi, a first-year student at Harvard, says there has been a lot of buzz on the Harvard campus about Yale students visiting Cambridge. 

“A lot of people around are talking about hosting Yale students,” Kalimi said. “I heard one girl ask if anyone had extra space in their dorm because she was hosting so many people they couldn’t all fit in hers.” 

The Harvard college events calendar lists several joint Harvard-Yale events scheduled for the weekend of the game, including a tailgate, music performances and “the annual Yale Bulldog roast.” 

Kalimi expects several more social events to be taking place on Friday and Saturday night. 

“I haven’t heard of anything specific but there’s always something going on. The vibes of having more kids on campus is exciting and definitely a net positive,” Kalimi said. “Usually the fun is at [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] or in Boston on a weekend night, but I think the Harvard social scene will be the place to be this weekend because of all the Yale students. 

The Bulldogs are looking to bounce back this year after narrowly losing last year’s game 34-31.