Housing isn’t part of the NACAC agreement at all. The schools agree not to require admissions acceptance before May 1. Some schools don’t even offer housing, yet they can still be a NACAC member. Some require everyone to live on campus. Some don’t offer singles or honors housing or gourmet burgers. I think schools are pretty up front in what they are offering; you have until May 1 to consider our offer of admissions, but we’re going to assign housing on a first come, first served basis.
The schools are allowed to have rolling admissions and ED and REA and all those deadlines advantage some and lead to cries of ‘unfair’ from others. The schools want to get the EA students to commit, so offer better housing (or housing at all), first registration, and whatever else they want to commit before May 1. They are still competing for those students and have already provided free t-shirts and sunglasses and playing cards - they need to give something important to get them to commit and ‘good housing’ is as good as anything.
My daughter’s school did do a ‘first come, first served’ for registration/orientation weekends, except for honors. Why do honors students get to register first? Why athletes? Why were the early registration/orientation weekend when my daughter was still in high school, still had graduation in June while the local kids had been out since May. It was all so totally unfair! And it made no difference at all as she got all the classes she needed.
I was an undergrad at Insert school name here, so I thought what they did was normal, having seen two colleges that do things differently I am more and more convinced that Insert school name here’s way is better. Insert school name here had a wide variety of rooms at the time, and while many of what were single and doubles have been remodelled into suites, the fact is that even within the suites there are rooms that are better and rooms that are worse. The different houses also have different amenities. (Ours had lovely courtyards with river views, squash courts, a pottery studio, a grill and a lot of music practice rooms among other things.) Anyway Insert school name here’s view was that living on campus and socializing with people outside your major and outside your comfort zone was part of the educational experience. To this end they made living on campus and eating all your meals on campus the norm. No freshman (with a few exception) , and less than 10% of upper classman live off campus. Some years I had great rooms, others not so much. It averaged out.
I totally get that it seems fairer to charge those who eat more more for their food, and those in tighter quarters less for their lodging, but ultimately I think the schools that do this all to often end up segregating kids by class.
There was a thread a while back that talked about the percentage of kids from top 1% families at various top schools compared to the bottom 60% of families. As a result, many of those schools are already segregated by class no matter how they handle housing. Many of the schools who have different housing options are not nearly as segregated by class upon admission.
I also know some kids who selected less expensive housing options to reduce debt (one took a 3 person room rather than a double because it was cheaper). I do not view having that option as a bad thing.
And as I noted, different schools have different goals, appeal to different types of students in different financial circumstances, etc. I do not see a problem with their being different options out there in different schools. To me, that is much better than making everything the same because we know for sure that students/families are not all the same, looking for the same thing, etc.
@saillakeerie Yes. That’s what it says. But it also says the above - that such deposits should not be used to manipulate commitments and it seems that in some cases, that is what is happening.
To the extent it is doing so, the NACAC is specifically allowing it. As I noted, if people do not like that they can apply to different schools. There is a lot of manipulation, money favoring, etc. policies by pretty much every school out there from what I have seen. People tend to selectively see that though.
So colleges can require the early housing/app deposits but they have to refund them if the student doesn’t enroll. IMO that’s less than ideal because it obviously favors those who can make those (and perhaps multiple) deposits, but it’s better than it was.
“I also know some kids who selected less expensive housing options to reduce debt (one took a 3 person room rather than a double because it was cheaper). I do not view having that option as a bad thing.”
At InsertSchoolName, debt is generally zero, so the affordability problem you describe can be solved with need-based financial aid rather than housing segregation.
“President at InsertSchoolName: Well lets just walk over to the money tree so we can meet full need for everyone.”
President at Schools That Do It Your Way: We give merit aid to attract rich kids that help our SAT/ACT numbers look better, then say we’re not rich enough to meet actual financial need.
So you know for a fact that every college that does not cover full need (with no loans) could indeed cover full need (again with no loans) if it stopped offering merit aid?
Just paid the deposit for son’s college and reading between the lines, it looks like it’s a bit of both. 1/2 the amount is applied to tuition and is refundable. There is no wording on the other 1/2, which implies it is not applied to any future charges and is not refundable. So my interpretation of that is that it’s 1/2 a deposit and 1/2 a “reservation fee”.
So if your child has been accepted to a school where payment of enrollment deposit positions you in line to receive housing contract earlier (and therefore have better chance of receiving housing of your choice), is it unethical to deposit at that school to stake your place in the housing line even if your child intends to wait to receive their RD decisions to ultimately make a call on which school to attend?