@salliakeerie Plus 5 on the snark. 
Colleges should at least wait until all acceptances go out to open housing. Asking someone to make a housing deposit before acceptance is insane.
What about if they have rolling admissions?
@saillakeerie lots of schools have rolling admissions, but then hold all housing applications until the summer and assign then. As long as your housing app is in by May 1st, you have the same chance at good housing as anyone else.
And a lot of schools have rolling admissions and then assign housing priority on when a housing deposit is placed. Its different approaches for different schools. I don’t have an issue with that as long as they make that clear.
However, they are almost all members of NACAC and are breaking, or very nearly breaking, the rules they agreed to as members when they pressure students to commit to housing early, particularly with non-refundable deposits.
So what if they do? They can still assign housing over the summer.
The elite (and generous FA) colleges by and large assign first year housing in summer, none of this pressure to early deposit before May 1 stuff. I’ve only seen that with state schools and lower tier privates (like the one my S went to, actually, but housing was guaranteed).
I never said schools with rolling admissions couldn’t wait until summer to assign housing. Just that they don’t have to. I was responding to the statement that colleges should wait until all acceptances go out.
No they don’t have to. But they do have to NOT pressure students to put down a deposit or threaten them with no housing if they don’t.
Playing devils advocate…but from the standpoint of the colleges they want to secure their class. Since the inception of the common app, there are students applying to as many as 14 schools. This gives the schools a little ability to secure students earlier. They are competing with so many other colleges and universities for their share of the pool of applicants.
@OHMomof2 “Pressure” and “threaten” seem overly dramatic to me. The NACAC regulation you cited references first come, first serve with limited housing. They require the deposit be refundable. From what I have seen, either 100% of it is refundable or a small portion of it is not (and it is called a fee). So you know that up front.
I was startled when it turned out S’s school didn’t ask for a deposit at all.
Housing assignments arrived in late August, IIRC.
Having gone to a LAC as an undergraduate, where housing was guaranteed all four years any everyone paid the same, I was surprised to hear that at some schools you could opt to pay more and get a single, and so forth. On the other hand, I can see, with the overcrowding that is currently common, that it is a bit much to ask a person stuck in a forced triple or even a forced quad to pay the same amount as a person with a single. But IMHO the answer to that is to plan better.
@saillakeerie , @mathmom is neither “humble-bragging,” nor just plain bragging. That isn’t her style. She is just stating facts.
I do think that being “overenrolled” is a tactical decision by many campuses. How else do you explain that it is repeated year after year.
Classes are secured by mid-May, maybe a tad later if waiting lists come into play.
I also think that colleges shouldn’t be sorting freshman by income which is what happens when kids pay more for nicer dorms, though I do get that it’s also unfair to pay the same for a forced triple vs a single.
So colleges shouldn’t be able to offer different sized rooms or numbers of students per room or just shouldn’t charge different prices for them? How about meal plans. Should they offer different options at different prices?
I know kids who are taking advantage of the lower cost options because they couldn’t afford the school otherwise. Or would graduate with more debt. I guess to some that is a bad thing.
The longer this thread goes just further convinces me that colleges operating as businesses is problematic to some people.
At most schools, the Honor students are almost always in the best dorms in the better locations on campus. All done deliberately to entice the brighter students to commit to their university over others. Its hard not to agree that colleges are businesses.
Hospitals are too.
Since we are talking about housing deposits …
We ran into a situation during college visits where one college said the housing lottery was allocated based on when you put your housing deposit in. It has rolling admissions, so conceivably one could put a housing deposit down in October but still not attend (it is refundable until May 1). Although all the freshmen are in one dorm, so I’m not sure if that’s any benefit.
I asked another college how they did their housing lottery and they said the above was illegal (both are private colleges) - something about how you are discriminating based on finances. I guess I will ask further down the road in the process but does anyone have any thoughts?
Colleges have legal departments which analyze the laws/regulations. So it seems to me unlikely that is could be as black and white illegal as stated the that college. Though if it is illegal/against given laws/regulations but no one does anything about it, I could see that. A law without a penalty is just advice.
There are scores of threads here which evidence discrimination based on finances. Current one notes impact of school visits on admissions which definitely are easier for people with money. Is considering visits illegal too? People with money can more easily afford test prep, tutors, etc. Is considering test scores illegal too?
I’m fine with colleges asking for deposit after you have been accepted. But asking for a non refundable deposit before you even know if you got in or not is crazy. More and more schools are doing this. The pressure to commit and the fees involved is getting out of hand. Lets not forget the over booking problem. My daughter goes Georgia State University and 400 students have to spend the 1st few weeks of school living in a hotel because GSU over booked.
I can’t see it being illegal. Unethical, though, since they’re pushing the edge of the agreement they made as NACAC members.
Colleges that (can afford to) care a lot about their lower income students don’t have policies like that. Elite colleges rarely have policies like that. The colleges that are scraping for every dollar have those policies. I’d look carefully at any college that is treating students who aren’t even accepted or attending yet that way because IMO they’re going to come with little fees and anti-student things like that all the way through the experience.