Freshman Housing Acceptance Higher Than Expected

It is not exactly a secret that on-campus housing at BSC is limited. With students living in temporary spaces, along with the surplus of freshman residents, people are beginning to notice it is cramped. What many students do not know however, is the reasons behind this problem, or the steps being taken to resolve this issue. Many have the impression that housing should be a simple process; we have this amount of spaces, so only deem housing to this many students. However, the process of housing is much more complex then just that. As explained by Beth Moriarty, the housing director, housing is a joint process decided by the Admissions Office and the Office of Residence Life and Housing. The Admissions office decides which first-year students receive housing. It is then decided by the Office of Residence Life and Housing to decide where they are going to live.

The Admissions office as a result needs to calculate the amount of students that they believe will accept their acceptance letter and housing guarantee. The number that is calculated by Admissions is then referred to as "the yield." The yield is constructed by looking at statistics from the previous year, combined with the statistics for the current year. The statistics they view being the average amount of students that tend to deny their acceptance, as well as their housing. This means that the Admissions office has to offer more housing spaces then they have available, with expectations of a certain number of students declining housing.

This year's yield was harder to construct now that Woodward Hall is acting as a second all freshman residence hall. This was unprecedented in the past, which made matters slightly trickier. Something else that was out of the norm was the increase of our yield. Last year the college had a yield of 30%. However, this year the yield was 36%, a 6% increase. Although an increase of interest in the college is always positive, it complicates matters when it comes to housing.

Between Shea/Durgin and Woodward Hall the college offers 925 beds for freshman. This year there are1,043 freshmen students living on campus. This is 118 more freshmen residents than expected. To solve this problem, the Office of Residence Life and housing added a few changes into effect.

"Our main concern was to keep freshmen together," said Moriarty. In order to do this, they decided to relocate upperclassmen on the first floor of Scott Hall to different locations. Many of the upperclassmen students on this floor had filled out preference sheets, which were honored while relocating them. The students who had not filled out preference sheets, received a phone call from the Office of Residence Life and Housing explaining the situation, and their requests were honored.

Currently, there are 755 freshmen students living in Shea/Durgin Halls, 243 living in Woodward Hall, and only 45 freshmen living on the first floor of Scott Hall.

To make more space, some freshmen residents are living in temporary triples, and temporary quads. Some upperclassmen and transfer students are being housed in lounges, and staff apartments. All students living in these temporary spaces are receiving a 20% housing rebate. While these students are in temporary spaces, all of these rooms meet the state laws and regulations. State law requires that a space has at least 60 square feet per person in a room of two or more.

Carissa Catarella, a transfer student from Northeastern University, is overall pleased with her living space. She is living in Miles Hall with four other girls inside what was once a study lounge.

"The room is bigger then I was expecting. We are all able to have our beds on the floor," said Catarella. The room is completely furnished, with enough furniture for all five members of the room, including portable closets.

When speaking about privacy Catarella explained she has, at the most, two hours a day to herself during the school week, with more time to herself during the weekends.

"If I didn't love my roommates, then I wouldn't be able to do it," Catarella said.

A drawback that was shared by Catarella and her roommates is that the first floor of Miles has no female showers because it is normally an all male floor.

As a result, they have to use the female showers on the second floor.

Lynsey Mihos, a roommate of Catarella's said, "It's almost like our room isn't a part of the building."

All students who are currently living in temporary spaces, such as the one above, will be offered permanent locations by January, if not earlier.

The college has plans to improve housing on campus. This fall, the newest residence hall, Crimson Hall opened, providing 408 more beds. The completion of this building allowed for the elimination of all temporary triples for returning upperclassmen students. Currently, the only students who have temporary triples, are freshmen and transfer students.

Although the construction of Crimson Hall added more spaces to the college, the housing waitlist is still about the same as last year. It consists of 788 students.

However, a large waitlist should help secure more funding for the college to expand its housing even more. The college is in the early stages of planning the construction of another residence hall. If approved, it would be a sister building of Crimson Hall, and would provide 400 more beds for residential students

Pope and Scott hall also have plans for extensive renovation, similar to that of Shea/Durgin Hall. Along with the extensive renovation, they intend to extend the size of these two buildings.

The renovations are definite, but a Massachusetts State College Building Authority board meeting on September 20th will decide whether the expansion projects will be approved. The MSCBA governs all of the residence halls at all nine of the state colleges.

If approved, 150 new beds would be added to each building. The project would start next summer, and would be completed in fall 2009.

The construction would be done by the same construction company that renovated the four levels of the library.