Increase in freshmen enrollment this year

Due to an increase in enrollment in the University’s class of 2013, some Maria’s Tower resident must now share their room with two other students. Along with tripling some rooms in Maria’s Tower, more freshmen have been placed in housing at 55 John St., Hotel St. George and 55 Clark St.

The increase has occurred because the University is trying to accept as many students as possible. While this would make the school seem less selective, Angela Lynch, who works in the University’s undergraduate admissions office, explains that it is more a financial issue than anything else.

“This is a numbers game. We need people to pay for the school.  In fact I was surprised that we’ve had such an increase in our numbers with the economy,” Lynch says.

The increase in enrollment affected some of the general conditions at the University. Common hour is now only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to make time more classes. “I haven’t really heard any complaints from students,” Katy Luk of academic scheduling said.”

As for the triples in Maria’s Tower, housing is guaranteed for all University undergraduate students who had submitted both the application and the deposit by May 1.  As a result housing was forced to provide all the freshmen with rooms. 

According to Patrick Roger -Gordon of University Housing, “Unfortunately, our demand exceeded our capacity.  The triples are all temporary.  By early August all the incoming freshmen who submitted their application and deposit on time have been placed in housing.  There are fewer than 20 freshmen on the waiting list, and housing is currently trying to get them off the waiting list now.”

Virtually all of the waitlist is mainly returning upper classmen Half the returning students on the list are people who thought they were going to get an apartment with friends.  The reason for this in most cases being that there is a misconception that apartments are less expensive than University housing.

According to Roger-Gordon, most students preferred being tripled in Maria’s Tower over being placed in regular rooms in the St. George because of the convenience of Maria’s Tower being connected to the main University building.   All floors in Maria’s Tower had triples.  Housing chose certain rooms by their slightly larger size.  All the 16, 17, 21 and 22 rooms, are triples.

The University solicited volunteers and a third of the students put in triples have done so willingly.  In addition, most of the freshmen’s building preferences were granted depending on if their deposit was submitted before the deadline. Those placed in the triples received a discount on housing.

Housing could have said no to providing rooms to some of the freshmen if they had felt the need to do so, but in their opinion that would be unacceptable.  The University wants an increase in enrollment; therefore, not giving freshmen students who have submitted the application and deposit by May 1 housing is not an option.  This incident occurred in the past as well and housing found a way to fix the overflow of students.  In fall 2007, 15 rooms were tripled and each of those rooms were de-tripled before opening day.

Though there has been some backlash from students and parents for tripling the rooms in Maria’s Tower, overall it has been mostly positive outcomes. 

“A few students were unhappy.  However, now that students have met one another, they’ve been cooperative and they’ve reacted well with students and staff.  We have a good group of students this year. 

“De-tripling is happening fast.  Students know what order they are on the list. Housing with 45 triples and which became 32 by opening day.  By the 21 of September it will be 20,” Roger-Gordon said. Students who turned in their deposits first in the triple rooms get the first option of moving to a new room.

“As of right now, it looks like housing will be able to de-triple everyone by the end of September,” Roger-Gordon said.