It happens every year to some school. Two years ago it was UC Irvine.
It would be worse if they were underenrolled and didn’t have the money to hold a class, had to lay off professors or instructors, had to close a dorm because they couldn’t afford to keep it open.
Maybe 1/3 will take one of the options. The rest will be cozy.
Does anyone posting here have an incoming freshman? If so, what are your thoughts? What is the discussion like on the Tech parent’s Facebook page for the Class of 23?
I have one (going into Pamplin COB). You have some concerned parents on facebook - actually the mods there shutdown the negative posts as they were getting rediculous. I personally think VT is doing everything they can to mitigate any issues for students. Your going to have some people 3 to a room in larger rooms and some people 3-5 in converted study lounges (which I hear in past when this done the kids loved it).
I think the kids are fine and will be fine … the parents are just doing parent type worrying.
3% more students on campus this year isn’t going to create havoc. Plus they are doing a lot of things to improve services to make that even less noticeable. I’m sure freshman engineering classes are going to be pretty full this year though (believe that is the student body most impacted).
I think the people that need to worry are seniors in high school where VT is their top choice. They are obviously going to bring down admission numbers next year and you may see something like a 50% acceptance rate (even much worse in those overfilled this year like biology and engineering).
Numbers as I see them is, with some of the new dorm renovations having come on line in past year, they can most likely comfortably accommodate about 6800 freshman … they are starting at 8000 but normal melt would bring that down to probably 7600. They are probably going to get about 100 students max volunteer for off campus …. and probably then get that up to about 200 with the offers that went out to take a gap year for money. So they are probably still going to be at about 7400 kids coming in (putting them about 600 kids more then they comfortably want). With 34,000 undergrads this year your talking actually 1.7% more students on campus than they were ready for. As you can see this isn’t the end of the world. Your probably going to have 250 of them in study lounges and the other 350 in triple bunked rooms. My only suggestion from complaints I hear about the academic side, Turner, being overcrowded at lunch time …. add 2 more food trucks (they already have 2) to park outside class.
Same kind of situation happened in 2017 (it was 6800 incoming but one dorm wasn’t finished and another was closed for renovation - so less beds)…. I’m sure you had the same parent reaction. From what I have seen online the kids loved some of the converted study lounges and didn’t leave after they were offered other rooms.
@cbl1 I’m not sure where you’re getting your data. You say there are 34,000 undergraduates. There are 27,140 undergrads this year. And it’s not just about dorm space. Each classroom can only hold so many, and they’ll need to offer a lot more sections of most freshman classes, especially the core courses. There’s a freshman writing requirement. They’ll need to hire dozens more professors-- to come for non-tenure track positions for just the year-- starting in the summer. I’m guessing they’ll be begging retired faculty to come back, but otherwise Blacksburg is not a huge market for unemployed professors eager for a one-year adjunct gig. Will they be able to hire professors of their usual quality given these constraints? It’s a daunting prospect.
My feeling is it will not effect next year freshman but maybe transfers as they will adjust via pushing students to do internships/co-ops, overseas programs with be marketed and just simple students dropping off after freshman year… less transfer needed to cover the above
Sorry obviously meant 34,000 students. I don’t know anything about writing requirement I’m not sure what your referring. It will effect freshman next year just as it did last year.
There are 1520 faculty members - your then talking about jump of 20 to 1540 like it’s some kind of impossibility when they are obviously already planning for the spike.
Aren’t many of the lowest level classes taught by junior faculty/adjuncts/TA types anyway? Or post doctoral fellows? Some poor grad student can probably be pushed into a frosh English composition teaching assignment.
The big thing with freshman lower levels is they are large classes normally. So your student to teacher ratio for the lower level classes is much higher. Meaning even less new professors needed. It probably going to be more of current professors teaching an extra block to bring in another 100 students for that particular class when your talking engineering. Again people are just saying things with no knowledge of what the school needs to do. Luckily the school knows what it needs to adjust. People are fixated on some freshman class number and ignoring the obvious that tech has teams working to make this as smooth as possible so the kids have the best experience possible.
If my son gets triple bunked so what ? He gains an experience and saves a few thousand in rooming costs. Last I checked he wasn’t going there for it to be a country club.
That’s the US News and World Report # that first pops up in a google search. SCHEV’s website provides headcount census for Fall of each academic year for all universities in VA. I’m more inclined to trust the state council’s stats. Their data indicates 27, 811 undergrads. Interesting to note (and relevant to @airway1’s post #64) - if you total the freshman admission stats for 2015-18 it comes up approx. 2,400 short of the total head count for Fall 2018. That’s your transfers. Not much can be done re: the VCCS guaranteed admission program transfers, but if I were a student at another 4 year university who wanted to transfer in 2020 I would be concerned.
A surprising number of incoming freshman come into college these days with portions of their core curriculum (Pathways in VT language) already covered by transfer credit (AP, IB, or DE). ENGL 1105 and 1106 are likely two of the most common, as would Intro to Psych and Intro to Soc (almost all majors require a choice of one of those two). Last Fall there were 100 sections of ENGL 1105. This fall there are 117 sections. They have already adjusted.
Yes. Also true at most state publics. Even if it says an actual name (rather than “staff”) next to the course in the timetable, a TA is going to be your go-to in many cases. Some courses are hybrid, some are available 100% online.
Certainly.
Yes my son has credit already from high school for engl 1105/1106 as well as psyc via ap exam.
We reviewed all the pathways and he only has to take 2 extra classes to fulfill. A science and an art. All the rest are covered by Ap credits and dual enrollment credits from high school (he has 39 credits coming in).