Due to an unanticipated amount of freshmen accepting admission, approximately 50 to 75 male resident assistants were placed with roommates, although the number has been decreasing as male students continue to get placed in permanent rooms.
Approximately 150 more prospective students paid the $200 admissions deposit than expected, said Susan Davies, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management.
Davies said as Appalachian continues to gain popularity, it becomes “more difficult” to predict how many students will accept offer of admission.
“This year we had more students accept our offer of admission than we’ve had in five to seven years,” Davies said.
Starting in January after the reapplication process for housing upperclassmen is completed, University Housing and the Office of Admissions meet regularly to monitor numbers of incoming freshmen and housing, Davies said.
Although more freshmen were accepted than planned, no freshmen were placed in resident hall lobbies this year, Director of University Housing Tom Kane said.
“People transfer or decide to move off campus, so we have to make an educated guess of how many students we think we’re going to lose from the time we complete the reapplication process through the first day of classes,” Kane said.
Students were notified about living with RAs via email the final week of July.
RAs who have roommates will be compensated if they have a roommate longer than 30 days, Kane said.
University Housing tries to have every student placed in a permanent room by the end of the first week of classes, Kane said.
Since University Housing does not receive any tuition or state money, optimizing space is important to keep the budget balanced, Kane said.
“If we have vacancies after opening then we have to trim our budget,” Kane said. “Our goal is to optimize the space we have available. Now that doesn’t drive all our decisions, but money is an important factor because we pay for other services students and residents depend upon.”
STORY: CHELSEY FISHER, Intern News Reporter