Most of the incoming freshmen and new transfer students that chose to live on campus will be tripled this academic year, according to Campus Residences.
According to the Stony Brook Undergraduate Admissions website, “in order to offer as many students as possible the experience of our residential learning environment, strategies that include assigning three students to a double room and other temporary housing will be utilized.”
Campus Residences acknowledges that “while some rooms will be detripled relatively quickly, it is possible that your room may not be detripled this academic year.”
Detripling offers will be determined by a lottery drawn of all tripled residents based on proximity to the vacancy. If a student is drawn from the lottery, they will receive the first space available nearest their tripled room.
Chandler Cribe, a senior double major in biology and psychology, said at the orientation fair, parents were told by Campus Residences staff that most of freshmen students will still be tripled by the end of the year.
“Only one guy was really angry and said he was going to sue,” Cribe said about an orientation fair in July. “The rest of the parents were unhappy but weren’t making that much of a scene.” Cribe said staff resolved the situation.
Alan S. deVries, the associate director of Residential Programs for Administration and Services and director of Conference Housing, said such instances are not the norm and that Campus Residences staff members are specifically trained to explain tripling to parents and students and to resolve roommate issues.
The university is trying to make the tripling situation easier for students by providing some amenities. Students who are tripled will receive a 15 percent discount on housing ($565) for the semester.
In order for tripled students to have a more positive experience, the university is providing lofted beds, a third desk and more bathroom cleaning to corridors and suite style tripled rooms.
To make moving easier, when a student is removed from a triple, a room change crew will help the student move to their new room.
“Our Senior Staff retreat this year focused specifically on how we would organizationally work to maintain the quality of service provided to all residents, realizing that the increase in students [and] triples impacts every resident, even those not living in a triple room,” deVries said in an email.
The lack of on-campus housing is due to the increase in housing renewals from returning students and the increase of enrollment into Stony Brook.
Ninety percent of all freshmen currently live on campus, according to the Campus Residences website. 80 percent of freshmen lived on campus in 2008, and 84 percent lived on campus in 2013, according to the Stony Brook University Common Data Set. In total, the number of undergraduate students living on campus has increased from 53 percent in 2008 to a projected 62 percent this fall.
“Students want to be on campus and the university wants to accommodate that,” Stony Brook University Media Relations Officer Lauren Sheprow said.
A new dining and residence hall on Toll Drive is estimated to be completed in fall 2016, adding 759 beds to Stony Brook housing. It is expected that a second residence hall in the Toll Drive project will receive a bid from a contractor this fall.
Brookhaven Residential Village, an area of housing at Dowling College that is leased for Stony Brook students for the next two years, will house approximately 200 transfer students this fall who would otherwise not receive housing. deVries said the students who attended a visit to the Brookhaven Residential Village had an overall positive reaction.
“The University has historically guaranteed housing to freshmen who apply by May 1st. Transfer students are not guaranteed housing but are accommodated on a space available basis. [It is] unlikely that this will change in the future,” deVries said
