After doing everything correctly, including signing up a group of 4 for housing, Chapman’s Housing is extremely disappointing to most sophomores. Sure, they have 4-person apartments but they let singles sign up for them. So the people who worked hard to put together a group of 4 had no options. Not to mention that a huge number of sophomores could not get on-campus housing because of the bad “luck of the draw”. Wouldn’t it make sense to have the preset groups of 4 sign up first? At least as long as 4 person housing is available? Is it really that hard to figure out? Instead they left these groups to figure out how to break up. And unnecessarily forced students to sign up with strangers. As expensive as this university is, the least they can do is have a workable housing plan and to warn students that the odds of on-campus housing is extremely low. This has left an extremely bad impression.
Thank you for your post. My daughter is considering Chapman after a bad campus tour, so your alerting us to the housing situation is very helpful. Is housing only available to Freshman?
First let me say that my daughter loves Chapman and this was our first rather negative experience. Housing is only guaranteed for freshmen who sign up by the deadline. However, we were told that they’ve never had an issue of sophomores not getting housing. This year my understanding is that 100 sophomore students did not get on-campus housing. The caveat there is that many who did get housing had to sign up with strangers. The process was disorganized and the housing office seemed indifferent. The students were told ahead of time to find a group to live with and register as a group. It’s not that easy to find a group, but many did just that. Yet when their assigned time came, all of the 4-person rooms were filled with singles or pairs. So 3 of the students could go in with a stranger (leaving 1 person out) or split in to pairs. It was just so illiogical. To make matters worse, all of this took place during class time, so it was almost impossible for the groups to figure out what to do. And then more rooms filled with singles. Logic dictates that singles should be filling in last–they obviously don’t care who they live with and singles could then match with other singles. So the process was incredibly frustrating and very sad for those who ended up with a potential bad match with a stranger or with no housing. We assume now we will need to find off-campus housing for her junior year…I am not thrilled with that although there are many rentals and apartments in the area.
Wow. This sounds crazy, and makes no sense. I’d be furious, frankly. Are the rentals reasonably priced? Or are they planning to add more student housing? I seemed to recall a lot of building going on while we were there, which is good but as the campus grows, hopefully they’ll provide enough housing for students.
Yes, the rentals are reasonable if you are sharing a place…it’s less than Chapman housing. They are planning on more housing but it will be a few years. Chapman is great with being good neighbors, but some in the community are against further growth so I think that has delayed some of their building plans. You mentioned Scripps in a previous post and I know the Claremont colleges have a similar issue with the surrounding community wanting less growth.
Totally agree with your assessment! My D had a nearly identical experience with the housing selection process.