STEP Central 4/9 Update

Small shifts are the trend as we wind down the "upgrade" phase of STEP.  A few more $100 seats are available, and 400$ vs $600 seats are even.  Sections EE and WBU are now closed unless some seats would open later as a result of downgrades.  I am particularly curious to see how this all works out.

To be honest, I'm not sure why they split this process into two phases.  I imagine there are a number of folks who had grandfathered in to 50-yard line seats and do not want to now pay $600 a seat per year to keep them.  If they decided to retain at all (assuming they weren't thoroughly disgusted and already released those tickets, choosing not to renew) then those "prime" seats are now going to open up in the next phase--but the upgraders have already chosen, and perhaps would have wanted those seats had they known they would become available.  I'm not sure why there simply wasn't a process from start to finish--choose up or down--based on your points.  You could risk taking seats later if you chose to see if some of those prime seats would become available.

Who am I kidding?  The only FAIR way to have done this would have been to reseat everyone based on point totals.  That didn't happen.  So no matter how they did it, there would be some inequity.

NOW THAT I HAVE WRITTEN THIS, I went back to the PSU website to check the details.  I was under the wrong impression . . . I thought anyone could retain their seats so long as they had made the donation to qualify for that seat this year.  But those who chose to downgrade had to forfeit their seats as per the STEP FAQs page:

If you declare that you are interested in moving to a zone that requires a lower Seat Equity donation, you must first RELEASE your current ticket, then you may participate in the seat selection process. However, there can be no guaranteed offered as availability will be unknown ahead of time. Therefore, there is some risk with this choice.

So that explains why there are almost 14,000 seats available.  I wasn't aware that some people had to give up their seats.  Again, it doesn't seem fair that people who are looking to upgrade can shop around but still keep their seats if they choose, but people looking to downgrade can't.  It is also clear that some of the people upgrading these past few weeks have at least made lateral moves since there have been some $100 seats taken.  On the other hand, doing it this way did open up those potential higher value seats for folks that wanted to upgrade.

In the next phase of things, we should start to see the total number of available seats drop, as these folks have already given up their seats.  Of course, some may be disappointed in what is left and simply choose no seats.  I'm really curious to see how many seats are left and how the University tries to sell those.

My head hurts now.

SECTION	Donation	Seats Available	Seats Available	Seats Available	Seats Available	Delta
		3/28/2011	3/29/2011	4/1/2011	4/9/2011
WB	$400	341	366	368	276	-65
WC	$400	156	98	39	26	-130
WD	600-2000	246	179	109	57	-189
WE	600-2000	14	14	14	11	-3
WF	600-2000	249	180	94	50	-199
WG	$400	134	104	34	18	-116
WH	$400	313	337	402	340	27
WJ	$100	43	39	14	16	-27
NA	$100	46	48	83	47	1
NB	$100	66	74	86	77	11
NC	$100	43	59	92	99	56
ND	$100	55	55	61	69	14
NE	$100	75	85	113	130	55
NF	$100	94	94	108	121	27
NG	$100	41	71	106	122	81
NH	$100	54	74	107	124	70
NJ	$100	55	69	109	178	123
NK	$100	45	51	71	207	162
NL	$100	48	48	80	83	35
EJ	$100	127	126	60	31	-96
EH	$400	552	580	608	559	7
EG	$400	235	209	132	84	-151
EF	600-2000	248	176	96	64	-184
EE	600-2000	3	2	2	0	-3
ED	600-2000	1044	929	705	555	-489
EC	$400	1099	999	772	490	-609
EB	$400	72	103	148	172	100
WBU	$100	28	34	28	0	-28
WCU	$400	413	443	457	469	56
WDU	$600	691	691	655	633	-58
WEU	$600	353	324	296	284	-69
WFU	$600	617	623	625	599	-18
WGU	$400	343	349	365	333	-10
WHU	$100	61	54	38	2	-59
WJU	$100	28	76	101	35	7
NAU	100-400	18	16	20	66	48
NBU	$100	29	39	57	61	32
NCU	100-400	44	51	79	137	93
NDU	100-400	26	41	71	118	92
NEU	100-400	54	60	90	133	79
NFU	100-400	34	46	50	86	52
NGU	100-400	22	16	38	79	57
NHU	100-400	15	17	32	84	69
NJU	100-400	23	33	71	162	139
NKU	$100	3	3	3	1	-2
NLU	100-400	20	5	1	1	-19
EJU	$100	78	96	189	229	151
EHU	$100	96	116	110	13	-83
EGU	$400	750	862	974	995	245
EFU	$600	819	851	863	841	22
EEU	$600	694	712	714	705	11
EDU	$600	1486	1478	1466	1454	-32
ECU	$400	1458	1456	1497	1559	101
EBU	$100	8	6	2	5	-3
SAU	$100	19	21	22	26	7
SBU	$100	31	33	63	130	99
SCU	$100	26	26	52	117	91
SDU	$100	40	56	76	97	57
SEU	$100	32	28	28	29	-3
SFU	$100	16	16	12	17	1
SGU	$100	11	11	17	30	19
SHU	$100	15	25	43	83	68
SJU	$100	26	26	50	81	55
SKU	$100	22	30	61	116	94
SLU	$100	28	28	52	108	80
TOTAL		13975	13967	13981	13924	-51	13%
100		1645	1902	2546	3350	1705	24%
400		5866	5906	5796	5321	-545	38%
600+		6464	6159	5639	5253	-1211	38%