Last year's freshman class of 5,601 produced a housing crunch on Virginia Tech's campus and a decreased freshman enrollment was necessary this year as the number of beds will also decrease.
There are 5,179 incoming freshmen this fall, which is close to the admissions target of 5,025. Kenneth Belcher, Tech's Associate Director for Occupancy Management, said it is a manageable number.
"We are about where we expect to be," Belcher said. "For the students coming in, we have got housing for them and we will have just a few students in temporary housing. Part of the people in temporary housing are returning students and part are incoming freshmen."
Over 300 students were placed in temporary housing last fall.
"Last year, we dealt with the extra large class of students by a very similar methodology where we use overflow housing, which would be converting our RA rooms to having a roommate and converting study lounges," Belcher said. "That is a pretty standard thing for us to do in that situation."
This year about 370 upperclassmen were turned down for on-campus housing, and no one from that wait list received housing. A crop of over 300 transfer students will live on campus.
Rick Johnson, Director of Housing and Dining Services, said upperclassman demand for on-campus housing can affect the admissions process.
"Since all first year students are guaranteed on-campus housing, it doesn't affect admissions the first year," Johnson said. "It is really only in the second year, when those students become upperclassmen would they make the decision to live on or off campus. Then the 150 less beds would become an area of concern for them."
East Amber Johnston will be closed for the upcoming school year, eliminating 400 beds, while only 260 students will be able to live in New Hall West.
Johnson said the East Ambler Johnston renovation also entails adding lounges and renovating the connectors to West Ambler Johnston.
"For us to completely renovate East AJ it will take two years because not only are we doing it in East, we are doing the connectors, the lounges between East and West in the first two year phase," Johnson said. "So when we are done it will be renovated, air-conditioned, it will have new lounge space in between East and West, new kitchens, new work out rooms, and things like that."
He said that while New Hall West is not as large as East Ambler Johnston, it will help alleviate some of the loss of space.
"There are two main objectives for building New Hall West. Number one, it gives us a different style residence hall on campus that students were asking for a number of years ago when we got into the initial planning. It is a double room but a private bath," Johnson said. "Reason number two is because we are going to close East AJ for two years, we needed another residence hall to lessen the impact of closing off 400 student beds for two years."
New Hall West will be ready for student occupancy at the start of the upcoming school year this August. Johnson said only the finishing touches remain.
"The only things that need to be done left on the building are exterior landscaping, they are putting in some sidewalks, they are grading the outside, and they are going to put seed," Johnson said. "That is going to be over the next two weeks."
According to Johnson, the university hopes to make renovations in all of the residence halls on the core campus that were built before the mid 1980s in the next 15-20 years. That list includes West Amber Johnston, East Amber Johnston, Pritchard, Lee, Slusher, O'Shaughnessy, Vawter, and Barringer.