Freshman Housing Acceptance Higher Than Expected
Ryan Glass
Issue date: 9/20/07 Section: Campus News
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.
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.
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