If students are parking that far away from campus, then they are most likely parking in the lot of their apartment complex, because most are really close to campus. And the BT route goes by most complexes, as well. There really isn’t a need to drive a car at all.
Meanwhile, VT is pretty common to live on campus for just the first year. Some live on Sophomore year, which accounts for the majority of the RA’s in the dorms. Otherwise, the college experience shifts to large apartment complexes where they live with their 3 good friends. Remember, there isn’t anything in Blacksburg except VT, so living off-campus doesn’t feel any differently. It’s just a huge college experience.
@Momtofourkids Thank you for your honesty about possible overcrowding at VT due to large acceptance of freshman. I experienced difficulty getting classes in my major in college due to overcrowding so its always the first question I ask. We went to an accepted student day at a university yesterday here in NC and I asked a lot of the student ambassador these questions. I was grateful for the information they relayed back to my daughter. VT is such a beautiful campus, I hope they find a way to figure this out. Good luck to everyone!
There are no student parking lots that are 1.5 miles from the academic side of campus. Chicken Hill is the furthest, at approx. 8/10 of a mile. My son lives off campus and says there are no issues with parking availability (although he doesn’t have any 8:00 AM’s). Closer parking options are avaible, but the permits are more expensive. VT stresses use of mass transit, and they have a very robust system in place. Student parking and distance to classes is common at almost every large university. (As a side note, VT also has one of the most physically fit student bodies… walking builds both muscle and character :)).
A two-year living on campus mandate from schools is becoming less common, except for many LAC’s. Living off campus in 2nd year hasn’t had a negative impact on the college experience for any of the several dozen students I know at VT and other schools in VA. On the contrary, it’s expanded their independence and transition into the real adult world - which is kind of what we want for our kids, right?
A ton of 1st year classes, and some 2nd year are going to be overseen by TA’s at any large university. VT hired add’l professors and expanded course offerings in those areas effected by the spike in enrollment for class of 2023. There was no increase in tuition.
This has been covered in other threads, but over-enrollment is not the same thing as over-offering. Since 2015, the number of students offered admission at VT has increased at around the same average % year over year. Class of 2023 offers were within that same general % increase over 2022, it just so happened that some 1,500 more kids accepted than in the year before.
@ShenVal18 is so right. People need to understand they didnt offer more acceptances then usual they just got alot more who accepted than they had thought would It would be interesting to survey some students to see -Why? Did others not get into their first choice like UVA or did something else draw more to VT than usual.
As far as living off campus. I did live on campus at my college for the first 2 years and i liked that breakdown but I can see if the school doesnt have the infrastructure to house more for 2 years the kids have to move to off campus housing. This is norm at JMU as well as many other large universities.
We understand there are different reasons for too many students/overcrowding. To us, overcrowding is overcrowding.
Last night I saw a CNBC YT video about the VT overcrowding and the VT admissions representative stated ~10% of the overcommits (approximately 700 students) from last year took the gap year offer. That means all those students will be freshmen this fall.
Those numbers will certainly cut into the amount of acceptance this year.
That number isn’t accurate. Approximately 1,500 students were offered the option of a gap year. That 10% figure would equal 150 students, which is in line with that VT had indicated re: how many accepted the offer. It was NOT offered to all incoming students, which appears to be where your 700 number came from.
@Momtofourkids I’m almost positive that final acceptance numbers aren’t available until after the matriculation deadline, so you won’t know the final size of the incoming class until after that. The full stats breakdown (apps, offered, accepted offer, yield) usually doesn’t release until Fall if I’m remembering correctly.
@ShenVal18 I dont know if you follow UGA but head of admissions there has alot of data right around the time acceptances go out in terms of AVG GPA/SAT numbers from in state out of state. applications and acceptances/denials. UVA at least has basic numbers available as well.
“Last month, Virginia Tech offered about 1,500 incoming in-state freshmen financial incentives to delay enrollment after the school over-enrolled by more than a thousand students.” 10%-150 students as you said
This was from this article all about last year from NPR
I think we are going to see a lot more students get waitlisted this year. As far as last years delayed entry students it will have no overall effect in this incoming class.
Acceptance is going g to be harder this year. That’s a fact. And this class will be much smaller then last year simply for housing reasons.
I don’t want to dwell on over acceptance last year. It happens at all schools. VT dealt with it well and moved on. I think it has been a great freshman year for students this year.
I think your going to see it university wide. The biggest crunch was housing. They had to add more staff so I would think they don’t want to see dramatic drops in attendance in areas they staffed up on last year. Probably doing some evening out across the board.
Have your button smashing fingers ready to go starting at 4:00. I can’t see them announcing before HS’s let out. I’m still banking on the first “I’m getting an error message…” post to hit around 5:03.
@jgwolf Data on # of apps, offers that were sent, and stats range for offers sent is on hand immediately. But acceptance of offers data isn’t confirmed until matriculation and that’s where your class size comes from. I don’t think VT shares any of the app and offers sent data until after RD (I can’t remember seeing anything that was specific to ED or EA previously).
I agree. Unless those add’l professor, GA, and TA contracts were all for only 1 year. There may also be some natural reduction in apps for university studies since this is now the 2nd year for no 2nd major option for CoE apps and from what I understand transfers into CoE are tougher than they have ever been.
@ShenVal18 you misunderstood -when I say “acceptance” I did not mean the kids who accepted, I meant VT acceptance. Of course they would not have the numbers until they heard back from the students who were accepted!
As for living on/off campus and the “adult world”. A lot more goes into becoming an adult than just living off campus. Part of college is the experience, the community of the college, if not everyone would go to their local CC and live at home to save money if that were not true. I personally lived on campus 4 years and it was a positive, grown up experience. My eldest is enjoying the same living situation at his school and its great. A year or two off campus would be great as well but to move off in your 2nd year especially for those of us who live far away can be a big hassle as well as feel its just too early to have (maybe) missed all the positives of living on campus, which for most of us (unless you are the boarding school elite) is a totally new and “growing” experience - living in a dorm.
@hastalavista - EXACTLY! Overcrowding is overcrowding…All the other commentary on the whys and whats I think most of us already are aware of…
Will most (or all) of “waitlisted” end up being “denied” if over-enrollment happens again (which is very possible) this year? One thing we all know is there are no way for VT admissions to prevent over-enrollment from happening again since the school is just getting so popular for some reason.
@Momtofourkids VT is pretty much known as having an extremely engaged undergrad community. Being in a dorm plays an important role for incoming freshmen, but not living on campus by 2nd year hasn’t put a damper on the sense of community for any of the students I know - they all participate in clubs, study groups, intramural/rec sports, etc. just like they did when on campus and still dine about 30% of the time on campus as well.
From a prior post you mentioned an acceptance at Clemson. They too have a 1 year only on-campus housing requirement. I only know a handful of Clemson families, but their kids all moved off-campus after first year as well and seemed to think that was the norm. I don’t know how restrictive they are re: 2nd-4th year housing requests, but VT issues very limited on campus housing (by lottery) to returning students unless they are RA’s or belong to some of the living learning communities. (You’re clearly putting a lot of thought into the decision process - so apologies if you already were aware of the returning student lotto, etc.).
@PLO2020 One way to hedge against a repeated spike in enrollment is to waitlist a large cohort. It wouldn’t be surprising if that happened this year. Whether anyone is taken off the waitlist is another story altogether.
Less offers for EA/RD/Transferred applicants along with bigger waitlisted pool might be the only answers to prevent repeated spike in enrollment. Getting in VT is only getting harder than you can imagine. Best luck to everyone on Friday!