School overcrowding

33girl · #1 01-19-2002, 02:23 AM

Maybe this should go in chit chat but I thought I would ask its relation to Greek life....

I saw that some people were talking about how U of Washington's enrollment has gone up drastically. Has this happened at your school? Has it affected rush/Greek life?

MoxieGrrl · #2 01-19-2002, 04:35 AM

Our enrollment has gone up in the past two years. It seems that we're finding that with more people, there are more clubs/activities being offered. So.....recruitment figures have dropped. The sororities seems to be ok during open recruitment (not the guys though), but formal recruitment is not seeming to be a priority for women on the campus. It stinks because we had one of the highest Greek populations in the country and I thought that was kinda neat.

Lil_G · #3 01-19-2002, 12:59 PM

Ontario's universities are far too crowded. Each yeah, there has been dramatic increases among students attending university and it's at the point now where something has to give. Next fall we'll have a double cohort because grade 13 was eliminated which will cause a ripple effect among the provinces and even states.

OnePlus69Is70 · #4 01-19-2002, 02:19 PM

UMass is becoming terribly overcrowded. When the school got rid of affirmative action, they had to maintain the same race ratios, so they increased the size of the freshman class by about 30%. At the same time, the retention rate has gone from 50% to 80%. Four years of that have left the dorms stuffed. There is no housing at any price off campus (70% of undergrads live on campus), and the Greek houses are stuffed. So every space in the dorms with a door that locks has been converted into a room- lounges and offices and such. At the beginning of last semester, there were even people living in local hotels at university expense.

The solution is that this year, they're cutting the size of the freshman class down to about 50% of last years size. It means the race ratios will be shot to hell, but there's nothing else to be done.

ThetaxiUW · #5 01-19-2002, 03:38 PM

Because of the UW's overcrowding we saw a great rush year. However, looking at next year is kinda scary. We had a rush of 15 people at our house. Thats good compared to years before. However, we need a rush of 20 next year. That will leave us with 60 guys. Sororities had 40 girl rush classes. Amazing when we look at it. My vision is: Rush is gonna suck next year when they don't accept as many people to UW and have a grade cutoff at 3.5. It could be a body rush year for some fraternities like Sig Eps, but wait... thats every year.

SigkapAlumWSU · #6 01-19-2002, 06:18 PM

On the first day of school, we officially have no open rooms anywhere on campus. The dorm I live in was full for the first time since it was built. We had one dorm that wasn't even finished because they were still remodeling it, so those students got to stay in a hotel for the first month (care of WSU, of course). And, if you can believe it, they are stepping up the ads about admission up! I mean, wow, we have a full campus, but they wanna up the numbers even more! I know UW is way more crowded though. I thought about transfering to the U next fall, and started calling about more information in October. I was lucky to get a sneak peak at the crowding for next year when they told me I would have to have a 3.9 to transfer (now if suddenly makes sense!)

carnation · #7 01-20-2002, 12:31 AM

Since the advent of the HOPE grant, Georgia's public universities have become full to the bursting point. Freshmen are lucky to get housing at some schools and at others, there's a lottery to get a room on campus if you're a sophomore or higher.

This is great for the Greek system anyway!

Optimist Prime · #8 01-20-2002, 12:40 AM

right now school is about 3,000 higher than its ever been. Sophmores and up are encourged, and seniors have have stricter rules if they stay. Hopefully more guys will come out.

#9 01-20-2002, 01:19 AM

UMich has a horrible overcrowding situation. It started 5 years ago (my Fresh year) where the overadmitted by like 500 and lounges were converted into bedrooms and they put many students up in hotels. Its called build another dorm, we know you have the money too. And each year it gets more out of control.
As far as it relates to greek life, it seems the more they accept, the less that actually rush (the more that drop out of it too). Even though rush numbers are still good. It still amazes me though that they can get 900+ girls to go through.

AlphaGam1019 · #10 01-20-2002, 01:35 AM

Parking hasn't been a problem til this fall. Thankfully, I'm at the business school which isn't on main campus.

Enrollment is up while some of the budgets of some depts are cut.

Some of the depts are getting overcrowded such as business-- thankfully they raised the GPA requirement to a 2.8 cumulative on all core class work (the business school is a SR part of the University--) gets rid of some people

aephi alum · #11 01-20-2002, 09:43 AM

My school hasn't really been "overcrowded", but they always accept more freshmen than they really have space for.

When I was in school, anyone who joined a fraternity was required to live in the house. The school depended on the fraternity system to take a certain percentage of the freshman class out of the dorm system. (Sororities were different - only a couple had houses, and only upperclasswomen could live in them.) The school also guaranteed housing for 4 years. So freshmen typically lived in crowded rooms (3 people in a double, etc), and one dorm had "lounge doubles" - they installed doors with locks on a few entry lounges, and made them into doubles.

As of next fall, all freshmen are being required to live on campus - they cannot live in fraternity houses. The school is building a new dorm to accommodate the increase in dorm population. This past fall, for the first time, a few fraternities extended non-residential bids, so they can keep their houses closer to full next year. Which should mean that since fraternity houses will only have to accommodate 3 years' worth of brothers instead of 4, the Greek system should grow. I guess we'll see

ZTAngel · #12 01-20-2002, 11:03 AM

Parking has gotten worse at my school although new parking garages get built every year. The traffic along the roads I take to school has gotten more and more congested. It has also become much harder to get into classes. They become full quicker because of the greater amount of students UCF admits each year.

Lil_G · #13 01-20-2002, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by aephi alum
My school hasn't really been "overcrowded", but they always accept more freshmen than they really have space for.

When I was in school, anyone who joined a fraternity was required to live in the house. The school depended on the fraternity system to take a certain percentage of the freshman class out of the dorm system. (Sororities were different - only a couple had houses, and only upperclasswomen could live in them.) The school also guaranteed housing for 4 years. So freshmen typically lived in crowded rooms (3 people in a double, etc), and one dorm had "lounge doubles" - they installed doors with locks on a few entry lounges, and made them into doubles.

As of next fall, all freshmen are being required to live on campus - they cannot live in fraternity houses. The school is building a new dorm to accommodate the increase in dorm population. This past fall, for the first time, a few fraternities extended non-residential bids, so they can keep their houses closer to full next year. Which should mean that since fraternity houses will only have to accommodate 3 years' worth of brothers instead of 4, the Greek system should grow. I guess we'll see

Whoa...i have never heard of a school making someone live in residence, that's ridiculous. At our school however, our residence (dorms) only accomodate about 10% of the total undergraduate body at about 2,100. At mid-august there was a waiting list of students equal to that total amount this year. To top it off, there's a .2% vacancy of housing in this city - just brutal.

Tom Earp · #14 01-20-2002, 12:13 PM

It seems that Our Acedemia Brilliants have come up with many Dumb ideas!

In Kansas, all of the state schools have shown minor increases, but in the same tone, they are raising tuition, limiting new students to GPA for admittance.
Yet my school tore down a dorm to make a plaza area. The only ones making money are the devolopers who build sub standard apartments. They do not let first year freshman live in Greek Houses.

Of course parking is a premium, but My chapter has parking for the House and Brothers which is right accross from campus.

Hell lets build more academia buildings but no place for students to live.

aephi alum · #15 01-20-2002, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lil_G

Whoa...i have never heard of a school making someone live in residence, that's ridiculous. At our school however, our residence (dorms) only accomodate about 10% of the total undergraduate body at about 2,100. At mid-august there was a waiting list of students equal to that total amount this year. To top it off, there's a .2% vacancy of housing in this city - just brutal.

Freshmen are being required to live in dorms because of an incident that happened about 5 years ago, where a freshman fraternity pledge drank too much during a pledge activity. He had a severe case of alcohol poisoning, didn't get the medical attention he needed until it was too late, and he died.

So the school administration decided that the best way to prevent something like that from happening again, is to keep freshmen on campus, where there are graduate residents to keep an eye on things.

*sigh*