<p>How can you find out if many students who live on campus leave and go home on the weekends? If you can't visit a school to ask current students, is there a way to find out? If a large percentage of Freshman live on campus an accurate picture of this? Of course, a school that has a large percentage of OOS students would imply that most stay on campus. But if you are considering an OOS State school, which have a vast majority of in-state students, then my fear would be that the campus would be deserted on weekends. Any suggestions for determining this? If it helps, the schools I'm wondering about are:
University of Alabama
University of Mississippi
Louisiana Tech University
University of Arizona</p>
<p>I would look at their OOS numbers. The more OOS students, the less likely students are going home. Also, if the school has weekend activities…like big sports to watch, then more kids are sticking around.</p>
<p>The last two frosh classes at Alabama have been OVER 50% OOS. Certainly, those kids are not going home on weekends. The campus is located about mid-state, so those who live in that metropolitan area might sometimes go home, but those who live in the Huntsville or Mobile areas probably don’t go home either. Alabama is not a suitcase school at all.</p>
<p>In the four cases you mention, I think it is easier to say that many kids stay on many weekends for two simple reasons: football and basketball. Not only do fans stick around to watch games but the entire supporting staffs (marching bands, drill/cheer teams, etc) stick around for these games. Even students who don’t necessarily go to the event will sometimes stay simply because of the ‘event’ of it all. Now there will be weekends where no game is on and not a lot is going on and yes, students may scatter on those, but my experience at a larger Division I school was that there was nearly no weekends where it was deserted.</p>
<p>For the major state Us you have as many kids coming IN for the weekend fun as leaving if not more. Not a problem for the majors. Now some big city publics like a U Houston or UC-Denver–ghost towns.</p>
<p>Alabama, Mississippi, and Arizona all have active on campus lives. I’m not sure about Louisiana Tech, but from what a grad student who wen there for UG claims, the campus life at my school is much more vibrant than at LTU.</p>
<p>The USNWR site tracks this information in the “Student Life” section of each college review.
A pie chart shows the percentage of students living on and off campus.
A line item shows the percentage of students on campus during weekends (on average).</p>
<p>For example, at Alabama, ~28% live on campus and 75% are on campus during weekends. At Mississippi, 33% live on campus; the number on campus on weekends is not available.</p>
<p>The percentage of students living on and off campus also is in the Common Data Set, section F (“Student Life”). I don’t know an independent source for the number of students “on campus” on weekends, or how USNWR counts this number. For one school in my state that is considered a “suitcase school”, the USNWR number is 65%. That seems high. They may be counting anybody who is on campus even for a few hours on weekends to use the library or whatever.</p>
<p>For example, at Alabama, ~28% live on campus and 75% are on campus during weekends. At Mississippi, 33% live on campus; the number on campus on weekends is not available.</p>
<p>These numbers can be misleading. First off, these are large schools. They’re not going to have 20,000+ dorm beds in residence halls because too many upper-classmen WANT to move to nearby “student apts”. My younger son spent two years in dorms and then two years in a nearby “student apartment”.</p>
<p>These numbers are not going to reveal whether students “go home to parents” on weekends.</p>
<p>Also, students living on campus in Greek Housing are not counted. .</p>
<p>Tk, that number just measures how many students live in university owned housing. Last summer, I lived in an off campus apartment and was counted among the students living off campus. I assure you, I wasn’t flying from Oklahoma to California every weekend. A better metric is to look at the number of freshmen who live on campus. The number of upperclassmen is largely irrelevant unless a student is looking for a Rice housing experience.</p>
<p>The number of upperclassmen is largely irrelevant unless a student is looking for a Rice housing experience.</p>
<p>And Rice sells booze on campus so no biggie to stay on campus all four years. (just kidding).</p>
<p>^^ The percent of freshmen who live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing is shown in the CDS, section F1. For Alabama, that number is 91.7%. According to the same section of the CDS, 8.3% of freshmen live off campus or commute. </p>
<p>USNWR tracks by year whether students are required to live in school-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing. According to the Alabama “Student Life” page, freshmen (but not others) are required to do so. Apparently, exceptions are made for local commuters.</p>