University of Virginia Library

Admission Of 60 Extra Students
Forces Triple Dormitory Rooms

Some first-year students
will live in triple   rooms next
year because the   University
admitted 60 more qualified
Virginia students recently,
Admissions Dean Ernest H. Ern
said yesterday.

The admission of extra
students resulted not from
state legislative pressure but
from University President
Edgar F. Shannon Jr.'s
evaluation of University
enrollment projections of
13,500 students for the coming
year, Mr. Ern claimed.

"The University is making
up for a drop in the number of
graduate students who have
accepted admission by
admitting more
undergraduates, in order to
meet the 13,500 number," Mr.
Ern said.

He said that current
admissions statistics show that
2,315 first-year students and
600 transfer students have
accepted admission for the
coming year.

To meet the burden of
extra first-year students living
in the dormitories, Vice
President for Student Affairs
D. Alan Williams said yesterday
that "we are trying to find out
how many of these people will
be living in the dorms."

He said that 96 possible
triple rooms are available in the
Alderman Road Houses, and
using last year's tripling, "we
have 2,310 beds."

Seventy-nine rooms were
converted into triples last year
to meet an unexpectedly high
number of acceptances of
admission to the University by
first-year students. By second
semester, Mr. Williams said,
only 14 students were still
occupying triple rooms, and
"there was space by then for
these students, too. They just
chose to stay in the triples."

Because of a low demand
for upperclass men's dormitory
rooms, Mr. Williams anticipates
placing some first-year men in
upperclass residence house
space. The shortage of space
will also be alleviated by some
first-year students who are
Charlottesville or Albemarle
County residents and elect to
live at home during their first
year.

"We're well below tripling
all the space that we have
available," Mr. Williams said.
"We will start with fewer
people in triples than we did
last year, and we expect to
have space for them to be in
double rooms very quickly."
He said that first-year men
would probably be given
double room space more
quickly than first-year women,
because of the larger
availability of men's rooms at
present.

Last year's first-year
over-enrollment of
approximately 2120 exceeded
by more than 100 the
anticipated size of the entering
class, mainly because a larger
percentage of women accepted
offers for admission than was
expected.

In order to house the extra
students, rooms ending in "3"
in the Alderman Road
dormitories were converted
into triples.