The post venting about housing at Tufts got me thinking about all the schools that over enrolled this year. Purdue included.
I think families and students need to be mindful that “guaranteed housing” isn’t always going to be on campus. It’s also not always going to be in doubles, or in a student’s preferred location. Popular schools are just that, popular. And yield is not a precise science.
This was a big issue at my D’s school her freshman year and again this year. Purdue got a ton of negative press about how they handled their over enrollment but it was similar to what they’ve done before.
I’d recommend that families do some research to see how over enrollment has been handled in the past at the schools on their list. Some families will be OK with the solutions and others will not.
Just one more metric to help potentially pair down a college list if housing is a top priority.
Also, demand for campus housing may be higher even if the college did not overenroll. At many colleges, new students live in campus housing, but many move to nearby off-campus housing the next year. But many sophomores are new to campus, having spent their frosh years doing remote education. Without familiarity of the nearby area, they may be more likely to want campus housing than sophomores in previous years.
The year my older kid was a freshman (and I think all four years) there were students housed at a hotel on Commonwealth Ave near BU.
The year my second kid enrolled at Santa Clara, they over enrolled by over 100 students. The school created forced triples. Students were given the option to choose that and were also given a reduction in room costs. Students in those triples were pretty much guaranteed housing in a double for the winter quarter (due to kids not returning, study abroad, etc). My kid said that the majority of kids in the triples opted to stay in them. They had forged friendships and didn’t want to move. We tried to convince our kid to save us some money but she didn’t want to do it!
This over enrollment happens from time to time. I’m not sure it’s entirely predictable.
At many colleges, fall term has the highest enrollment. Many colleges only enroll new students in the fall, so there are no added students in the spring other than those returning from gap terms, co-ops, or study abroad (who are likely to be equally spread across all terms). So students who leave (graduate one quarter/semester early or late, or drop out other than at the end of spring) are not “replaced” until the next fall.
Some colleges attempt to mitigate this enrollment imbalance by admitting some students to start other than in the fall term (which does not seem too popular with students), encouraging study abroad or co-ops in the fall, or other methods (like the D-plan at Dartmouth).
I think many more desirable schools over enrolled this year, primarily because of their TO/TB policies. Few colleges have abilities to expand their housing capacities. One of the most serious situations is at UCSB, with its limited and expensive local real estate and lodging facilities.
I think it should affect application decisions this year as well. Middlebury, for example, overenrolled by 300 students for this year and has little flexibility to expand housing slots. I would assume that they will try to enroll fewer students next year but even the ones they accept should be concerned.