spurs20

Anyone get put in McFadden Dorm who is not an Honors student?

NewAggie1188

I was put in McFadden as well and I'm not an Honors student either.

AggielandBound

Both my roommate and I were put into the dorms and aren't in the Honors Program either

megadoo1

My son is in McFadden, but he is part of the Honors Program.

JKotinek

Howdy spurs20!

Yes, there will be students assigned to McFadden Hall that are not in the University Honors Program.

If you are interested in joining the University Honors Program, you can take part in the learning community class that will meet on Thursday evenings, attend public events hosted by Honors Student Council, and apply as a continuing student to the program when that application opens up later this fall.

If you have further questions, please don't hesitate to contact our office at honors AT tamu DOT edu or 979-845-1957.

Best,

Jon Kotinek
Associate Director
Honors and Undergraduate Research

SimpleLife

^Hi Mr. Kotinek.
Is this the first year (or the first year in some time) that non-honors students have been assigned to McFadden?
And if so, what precipitated that decision this year?
Will non-honors students be living in all of the 'traditionally honors' dorms this coming year?
Also, were non-honors students specifically selected to live in the honors dorms, or were they just randomly assigned to these dorms?
Were there not enough honors applicants to fill the honors dorms this year?
I'm just really curious ...
Thanks.

JKotinek

Hi, SimpleLife,

McFadden just came online as an Honors hall a couple of years ago, so it doesn't have an all-Honors (or even all-freshman) tradition. In fact, even though Lechner has been an Honors hall for close to 25 years, what it means to be an Honors Student has changed this year with our application...at one point being Honors eligible as an incoming freshman wasn't enough to be assigned to Lechner...you also had to be the recipient of a four-year scholarship.

In very basic terms, there we had about 400 beds for freshmen in McFadden|Lechner this year. We received 1850+ applications for those spots, gave offers to 400+ and had another 350 or so on a wait list. In order to be placed in the Honors Housing Community, a student not only had to have applied to Honors, but also had to apply for housing before it closed (at a record-early date this year). The "melt" from our accept and wait list was much greater than we anticipated and there are about 75 spots in McFadden|Lechner that we didn't have someone to fill, so these were filled according to Residence Life's priority process (they have the ultimate authority in filling the spots). I do believe that they gave preference to scholarship students for those spots.

A couple of issues affected this process this year that we are seeking to address this year:

1) First Time Around: This was our first time to have an application process for incoming freshmen, so we had no historical data for predicting the melt. Obviously, 200% was not enough, so we'll address that this year by making a deeper wait list and doing a better job of communicating to those on the wait list that they will not hear anything until after the national commitment deadline of May 1.

2) Timing: Our notification process was unexpectedly delayed by about a month due to outside influences, which made the timeline for housing application more compressed. We are addressing this by making some early notification and by requiring that students apply for on-campus housing to have a complete Honors application. This will address those students who we would have liked to have brought in but did not secure on-campus housing.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Jon Kotinek
Associate Director
Honors and Undergraduate Research

SimpleLife

^Interesting, Jon. Thanks for that great, informative answer!
Illuminating.