Hi. Long-time lurker, three kids in bs pipeline, random question posed out of mild idle curiosity:
A school we’re quite interested in is so over-enrolled next year that they had to resort to “temporary modular housing” to house the overflow. Spouse and I are both bs grads and have never heard of this, which strikes us as (a little? maybe fairly?) problematic.
Has anyone ever heard of anything like this?
I’ll refrain from further wondering until someone chimes in with a “yes Exeter/Choate/yadda did it three years ago and it was fine and no one cared” etc.
I was also wondering if they would need more faculty or require faculty to take on more classes next year. Just praying that I can get all my first choice classes :neutral:
Yes, it happens every single year atone school or another.
It was fine; no one cared. Or I should say, no one cared enough to transfer to their LPS as a result.
It is unlikely that they would ever be that overenrolled.
Not getting your first first choice classes can (and does) happen at schools that are not overenrolled. Any scheduling administrator’s first priority will be to ensure that all classes required for graduation fit into the schedule. Any electives are way down the priority list.
Thanks, Ski. I know that “temporary modular housing” can be pretty darn glam nowadays but nevertheless, visions of cold, tin-can-esque trailers did come to mind when I first heard that was their solution to the over-enrollment challenge. If I showed up at school and learned my kid wouldn’t be in an actual dorm I’d…have questions, to put it mildly.
Anyway. If other bs’s have resorted to temporary modular housing then I imagine this school is more or less copying their peers’ template. TY!
I guess it really depends on what they mean by “temporary modular housing.” In my BS experience, overflow meant singles became doubles and/or doubles became triples. Same in college except for the one year they had to house some students in university-owned apartments.
Now if this school plans to drop a few 40-foot containers onto the quad, then there might be some issues. 
That’s my point. I think “tmh” means pop-up housing, essentially, which becomes more problematic the more you think about it. Where placed, how many kids to a unit, where are the faculty, are the kids affiliated with a real dorm, are parents notified before they arrive, remind me again how much cash I’m shelling out for this, etc.
I went to bs too and yes, the singles becoming doubles etc was how schools dealt with extra bodies. That’s why I said my spouse and i had never heard of tmh being deployed to house overflow. I don’t think the school would use the term “tmh” if they were just dealing with garden-variety yield surprises. But I’m only going on very slim info so caveat emptor.
And those are all valid questions to ask the school. Living in a double that’s now a triple is one thing. Living in a Quonset hut is another, and unless the school is in the middle of nowhere, the neighbors might also have an issue.
Right. I have some experience with corporate crisis management and the moment I read about the tmh my radar went off. Again, the more you think about this, the more problematic it becomes – ie, there’s a legal dimension here vis-a-vis what the school “owes” an enrolled family per the contract.
Also, I misspoke, the school is referring to the arrangement as “temporary modular residences.” A semantical shift but somehow far less likely that they mean doubles becoming triples. (Presumably they’ve exhausted the typical contingency plans, suggesting one heck of a yield miscalculation. Like I said, I am quite familiar with the bs world and have never heard of this scenario.)
I wouldn’t worry about it. Sounds like this particular BS miscalculated their yield this year. That means they will be more conservative next year and continue tweaking until they can predict more accurately. It shouldn’t affect your kids’ chances at this school at all beyond the increased competitiveness of a school that has become more popular.