Incoming freshmen and transfer students at BGSU will get the first taste of one of several changes in this year’s on-campus housing process when sign-up for rooms begins Monday for these students.

In an attempt to avoid the housing problems that hit the University last fall, the Office of Residence Life will lease almost 100 additional University-sponsored apartment spaces and will require students living in these units and all other residence halls to make the initial $200 payment up front, with the option of paying online.

Last fall brought the largest freshman class in BGSU history and with it came a shortage of on-campus housing, forcing the University to lease spaces in four off-campus apartment complexes for 284 students. Almost 30 other students were temporarily housed in lounges in Offenhauer East.

The changes will, officials hope, smooth out the process for students while expanding housing options.

“There are not a lot of guarantees in this, but we think this is going to keep some situations that happened last summer from happening (this fall),” said Timothy King, associate director of Residence Life for administration and technology. “We don’t want to blame students at all, but some students [in the past] would get online and they’d sign up for a room and they wouldn’t have any intention of having a room. I think our hope is that … this will open up a little bit more room availability for students.”

Apartment housing will be assigned using a lottery process, similar to that used for Founders Hall, King said. Preference will be given to juniors and seniors, though anyone with at least 25 completed credit hours after this semester can apply. The apartments are located at: 451 Frazee Avenue, 514 North Enterprise Street, the Haven House complex and along East Wooster Street near Mercer Road.

According to King, Residence Life staff are also trying to think in terms of future demands with the addition of the extra apartment spaces. While officials expect on-campus housing to be close to full in the fall, next year’s incoming freshmen class will be “slightly smaller” than this year’s record-breaker, said Gary Swegan, director of Admissions.

“Clearly we’re thinking that we need these apartments in order to meet what we expect to be this level of demand for continuing students who chose to live on campus, continuing students who still fall under the two-year residential requirement and the new entering students,” King said. “And so our sense is we need those extra apartment spaces to be able to handle that.”

To enter the apartment lottery students must fill out an application, which will be available at all residence hall front desks and online, and return it to Residence Life beginning Mon., Feb. 28.

The application process for Founders Hall this year will begin after apartment housing has been assigned, King said. Online housing registration for other on-campus residence halls will remain the same.

Pricing for the University-sponsored apartments has been set at $2,113 per semester–what students living in the French House or a small group Greek unit pay this year–pending approval by the University’s Board of Trustees. A meal plan for these students will be optional.

Requiring students to pay their initial $200 payment before signing up for on-campus housing will eliminate some of the guessing game about who’s serious about living on-campus, King said.

“Paying first, essentially, it’s like holding that reservation–kaboom. It’s there, we’ve got it and that does that,” he said. “It cleans up the process a lot. It’s kind of like if you were doing an airline reservation, you don’t have an unlimited amount of time to leave the ticket open. You have to make a decision and put some money on the table.”

The change in timing will also make it easier for Residence Life staff to process the housing requests, King said.

“One of the great difficulties for us is [that] we were dealing with these processes in May and June in terms of payment and trying to sift through how many people were coming,” he said. “It was very hard to deal with a lot of that all at once in the pipeline.”

And the option to pay the initial housing fee online this year is an idea that parents and students have favored in the past, and it’s the next expected step, said Jason Gross, assistant director for Residence Life. Mailed payment forms will still be provided for those who do not want to pay online and these students will not be hindered from signing up for housing on time.

“All of our students are Internet savvy and that’s the expectation of how they register for their courses, so it’s not that great a leap,” Gross said.

Editor’s Note: For more information about changes in the on-campus housing process call Residence Life at: 419-372-2011.