University of Virginia Library

As you know, both Mr. Woodward and I have been concerned about the number
of students who apply for admission, pay the ten-dollar application fee, are
accepted and assigned a dormitory room, and cancel at the last minute or just
fail to appear. Apparently the forfeiture of a ten-dollar application fee is
not much of a deterrent. Many of these students have made application elsewhere
and are simply holding the space here as something to fall back on if they should
not be admitted to the institution of their first choice.

We believe that there should be a substantial payment after the student has
been notified of her acceptance at Mary Washington College before a dormitory room
is reserved for her. The payment of $100.00, which you suggested, should be
sufficient to take care of this situation.

The procedure we propose is as follows. The student files an application
for admission with ten-dollar application fee attached. Upon being notified of
her acceptance by the Committee on Admissions, she is required to make a payment
of $100.00 within a period of two weeks after the letter of notification has been
received. No student will be assigned a dormitory room until the payment of
$100.00 has been received. This payment is not refundable after June 1. Exceptions
to this rule will be made only in the most unusual circumstances, based on the
merits of the case as determined by the Bursar

It is our thought that this procedure would be put into effect at once with
respect to all new students seeking admission for the session beginning September,
1955. For students now in residence, we can set a deadline for them to apply for
readmission and make a definite payment. It is our present thought that the old
students should apply for readmission not later than April 1, and the payment
should be made not later than June 1.

The situation really calls for action. Each year we have had scores of
vacancies in the dormitory rooms because of late cancellations when we had
already turned away well qualified applicants because it was thought that all of
the dormitory rooms were filled. As you will note from statistics furnished by
Mr. Woodward with his letter of October 4, we had at the beginning of this session
sixty-three unused spaces in the dormitory rooms. The situation is entirely due
to late cancellations

---

375