Oversize freshman class packs dorms, classes

By Maria Hegstad
Flat Hat Staff Writer

While the 2001 freshman class may be the brightest, it isn't the largest, as University Relations Associate Vice President Bill Walker discovered Monday. According to Walker, 1,366 applicants accepted the College's offer of admission last spring, and 1,344 are now in-residence. But 1995 saw a larger freshman class of 1,373 students.

However, this year's incoming class remains larger than last year's 1,337 freshmen.

This increased class size "creates across the campus some inconvenience and real concern," Karen Cottrell, associate provost for enrollment, said. "On the other hand, from an admissions perspective, to be so popular and so visible is a good problem to have."

In order to accommodate the extra freshmen, the 33 doubles that were converted to triples and three triples that were converted to quads last year will remain classified as "involuntary overcrowds," according to Residence Life Director Deb Boykin.

Larger class sizes mean crunches on upperclassman housing down the road.

"The silver lining is that we have signed with a master planning design to create more living spaces on campus," Boykin said.

Boykin added that those new rooms could be occupied, at the soonest, in fall 2004.

"It [the freshman class size] was a surprise to us," Boykin said. Based on the experience from last year, no-show students can create space later in the year, allowing some students living in overcrowd rooms to live in a regular room.

The squeeze can also be seen at the registrar's office.

"Every semester we have lots of complaints of classes that they [students] wanted being full; we haven't really seen an increase in the last two or three years," Associate Registrar Kelly Lockeman said. "It does have an impact on our registration system -- longer lines and more conflicts [on the network]."

After last year's unexpectedly large freshman class, the office of admissions decreased their offers of admission by 80 for fall 2001 entrants. Yet the yield, or the percentage of accepted applicants who accept the offers of admission, rose beyond the office's calculation. This year's 42 percent yield was up from 40 percent last year.

The Admissions office received 9,200 applications this year, according to Cottrell, and she said that there are plans to lower the number of admitted students next year.

"We [the office of admissions] will take fewer students again next year," Cottrell said. "Our goal is to exactly hit the number, but there's a million factors we try to factor in. You can't just choose a number out of the sky."

However, additional entrants will mean a need for more resources.

"We cannot grow anymore without additional dorms, professors, classrooms and laboratories -- the state has got to invest in colleges and universities," Walker said.

The College is not alone in reporting larger-than-usual freshman classes. Articles in The Washington Post and The Virginian-Pilot report schools such as George Washington University, Old Dominion University, the University of Maryland, the University of Massachusetts and Washington and Lee are all swamped with unexpectedly high numbers of applications, and subsequently, freshmen. According to The Virginian-Pilot's August 27 article, by 2010, 38,000 more students will be attending Virginia colleges. The question of where and how to educate this vast number is immediately raised.

According to The Virginian-Pilot, some schools within the state system, such as the College and James Madison University, are concerned that continuing to increase their populations will have a detrimental effect upon their students' academic experiences. Others, like ODU, don't see the anticipated growth as a problem.

"William and Mary, we believe, has maintained quality in human scale," Walker said.

Cottrell sees hope in the fact that some schools in the Virginia system do want to increase their populations.

"Christopher Newport [University] wants to grow ... several schools in the state system want to grow," Cottrell said. "Hopefully, there will be some understanding in the state system that some schools are uninterested in growing [and that others are]."