Questions: Can anyone give me an idea what the class sizes are freshman yr?

Some are quite small others are large. For honors/regular, the professor should be the determining factor. As for after freshman year: the vast majority of students do move off campus, the university needs the space for freshman. The area around campus is mixed, some parts are nice, others not so much. A lot (but not all) of the near campus housing feels sort of “crowded” kind of like a concrete jungle, not much green space.