When Katherine Krabek, MCAS ’18, got back to 2000 Comm. Ave. for the semester, she figured people would have moved into the spaces left vacant by friends on her floor who went abroad. She was surprised to find that nobody had moved in, leaving several empty rooms on her floor, including two whole four-man suites. And if that was on her floor alone, she said, there are probably a lot more empty spots.
Also known as the Reservoir Apartments, 2000, the apartment building purchased by Boston College in 2008 that opened as a 540-bed student dorm this fall, currently has approximately 100 open spaces for the spring semester, according to Greg Jones, the director of housing operations for the Office of Residential Life. Jones said the surplus was caused by more students’ choosing to study abroad in the spring this year than in the fall. Jones said that last semester, 2000 was at 99-percent capacity.
When applicants are admitted to BC, only students with physical disabilities, NCAA full-scholarship athletes, students in the Connell School of Nursing, and the top 15 percent of the incoming class are awarded four years of on-campus housing, according to an FAQ page on the Office of Undergraduate Admissions website.
BC uses a housing appeals process through which interested students with three years of on-campus housing can apply for housing their junior year, when many students live off campus. If a student with on-campus housing goes abroad for a semester, their bed is normally filled for the other semester by a student returning from a semester abroad or somebody moving back on campus. Students may appeal for an entire year of housing or just one semester.
Jones said that in a typical year, ResLife approves about 100 housing appeals prior to room selection. ResLife estimates the number of appeals to grant by looking at how many appeals were granted in years past and how many students are eligible to live off campus.
“We would love to grant every appeal that we receive, but the reality is that we have limited number of spaces, and therefore we can only grant the requests that demonstrate a high need for campus housing,” Jones said.
Rachel Loos, MCAS ’18, who is an op-ed columnist for The Heights, spent the fall semester in Dublin. She was granted housing after she appealed last year, but decided to live off campus this spring anyway.
ResLife institutes a two-week housing freeze at the start of every semester before granting room changes in order to figure out who is at BC and who is not, such as a student who takes a semester off or decides, like Loos, not to use housing gained through an appeal.
“We need to let the dust from move-in settle before we can start making changes to assignments,” Jones said.
Jones said that there are also openings in other buildings on campus, though very few spaces are empty in places like Upper Campus. It is unclear how many of the empty beds in 2000 will be filled once the housing freeze is lifted.
“We expect beds may be filled through room changes, but we do not anticipate filling all of these spaces,” Jones said.
Featured Image by Lizzy Barrett / Heights Editor
