Demographics, Ranking Shifts Bring Changes to Fordham University

Continuing a nearly two-decade increase in admissions activity and interest, Fordham University saw its applicant pool increase by more than 10 percent in a year when the on-campus housing system also changed dramatically.

Up nearly 13 percent from the previous admissions cycle, Fordham received some 27,608 applications for spaces in the incoming Class of 2014, as compared to 24,462 last year. Additionally, there was a major demographics shift for this class, continuing a trend in recent years. The percentage of the class hailing from the State of New York dropped from 43 percent to 40 percent, while totals from New York City dropped to 19 percent from 22 percent a year ago. At the same time, students coming from distance markets increased dramatically. This year's freshman class has some 44 students from Illinois, 107 from California and 12 from Louisiana, up from 28, 79 and 3 respectively in the Class of 2013.

The academic achievements of Fordham applicants also improved this year, with the average SAT score up to 1249 from 1240 last year and 1229 the year before, and 41 percent of admitted students placing in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. This improvement can be linked to Fordham's continued rise in the influential U.S. News & World Report college rankings. Most recently, the school jumped five places from 61 to 56 last month.

"It is a reflection of all the good things that are happening here," said John Buckley, associate vice president for Undergraduate Enrollment, adding that the shift in rankings was "only positive."

The changes in Fordham's admissions picture, coupled with ongoing construction and the recent rearrangement student housing, have caused changes in the Office of Residential Life's operations this year.

With regard to freshman housing, the most notable change was the substitution of Goupil and LaLande Halls in Martyrs' Court for Hughes Hall, which is currently undergoing its two-year transformation into a new headquarters for the College of Business Administration. Of particular concern has been the placement of forced triples in Martyrs' Court, although Greer Jason, assistant dean of students and director of Residential Life, stated that the percentage of Martyrs' rooms that were triples was "about five percent," and that they are taking measures to assure that as many rooms were de-tripled as possible.

"Queen's Court and Tierney Hall [two freshman residential colleges] are assigned earlier in the summer, so when we assign those buildings, we estimate the number of triples we will need," she said, adding that the number of triples required in Martyrs' Court, Alumni Court South and Loschert Hall was higher than anticipated.

The triples, Jason went on to say, were evenly distributed between the three halls, although she noted that the rooms in Martyrs' Court are "about two square feet smaller" than their counterparts in Alumni Court South and Loschert. However, the Residential Life staff specifically chose to triple rooms that had layouts more conducive to tripling and did not have dropped ceilings.

Finally, Jason pointed out that with the replacement of Hughes Hall by Martyrs' Court, the breakdown of freshman housing changed from 50 percent doubles, 25 percent triples and 25 percent quads to around 70 percent doubles.

One other major change in the housing situation this year involved Fordham allowing its leases to expire on two off-campus houses: Belmont 2 House and Hughes House, both in the Belmont community of the Bronx. This has had some effect on the housing of Fordham's transfer students, estimated at 50 more than last year, as some are now being housed in Jogues Hall, the only section of Martyrs' Court that is not entirely dedicated to freshman housing. However, Jason emphasized that most transfer students were being housed in Belmont Community Housing, which was less in demand than expected after the completion of Campbell and Salice-Conley Halls, and that no transfer student was given housing priority over continuing students in post-lottery and overflow housing.

Moving on to Campbell and Salice-Conley Halls, Jason confirmed that all interior construction on the buildings had been completed, and that the only work remaining was to deal with some of the siding on the exterior of Campbell Tower 1 between the sixth and seventh floors.

"The buildings are in extraordinary shape," she said, going on to thank personally Joe Scaltro, Fordham's senior project manager for the buildings' construction, for his work on the project.

She went on to note that the buildings' residents are about 70 percent seniors, with most of the other residents being juniors and a very small number being sophomores. Additionally, she confirmed that the living rooms in the apartments, because of their varying shapes and sizes, have different sets and sizes of furniture, and that a limited number of smaller bedrooms have proportionately smaller furniture.

Additionally, Jason spoke briefly about the housing lottery for the 2011-2012 school year, saying that lotteries for Campbell and Salice-Conley Halls would likely be broken into four separate dates, rather than three, with the fours-singles lottery followed by fives-singles, fours-doubles and sixes-doubles to avoid the scramble for singles that led to the unexpected class distribution this year.

Finally, Jason said that plans are being finalized to bring future iterations of the housing lottery fully online, although she was unable to say for certain if this would occur this year or not. The system that Fordham will be using was purchased from StarRez, an Australian company that has provided similar systems to such universities as Loyola University Maryland, Boston College and Cornell University.