Pomona Housing Crunch Continues

By Jay Antenen
Staff Writer

Sophomores stuck in trailers may think differently, but according to College administrators, the 6.7 percent increase in the size of freshmen class this year is not to blame for the housing crunch on campus.

Instead, they blame a lack of interest in off-campus housing and a decline in the number of students studying abroad. The large freshmen class size did affect sponsor group selection.

Dean of Admissions Bruce Poch said he could not have predicted this year’s large freshmen class. Normally, when the academic profile of a class rises and students apply to more schools, as happened this year, the ratio of matriculations to acceptances, or yield rate, goes down. Instead, the college saw a three percent rise in the yield.

Typically, colleges seek to achieve a high yield rate. Ironically, this year Pomona’s yield was too high, leading to the large freshmen class.

Poch argued that criticism of the admissions office for accepting to many students is unfair. He said his office must consider thousands of variables when making yield predictions, including the geographic origin, gender, ethnic background, and whether the prospective student visited or interviewed. The predictions are also based “on seat of the pants guessing based on what else is going on in the world.”

The estimation process is made harder by the fact that admissions decisions at Pomona are need-blind. “We are as careful as we can be,” Poch said. “But we don’t want some data. I’m privileged not have to make admissions decisions based on a student’s financial status.”

The admissions policies of Stanford, Yale and Harvard also affect Pomona’s yield rate. With the elimination of early decision at these universities next year, students who are accepted early action to one of the schools may continue to apply to other schools simply to collect “scalps,” said Poch. Last year 107 students withdrew admissions from Pomona to attend Yale or Stanford.

No matter what information is available, estimating the yield is an inexact science. “After all,” Poch explained, “I’m trying to predict the behavior of eighteen year-olds.”

In years past, as many as 150 students lived off campus, but this year only 44 chose to do so. Dean of Students Ann Quinley said higher rent prices in Claremont and a high satisfaction with on-campus housing have contributed to the lower numbers.

Incentives to live off-campus failed because students often wait until August to see if they will receive an incentive. By this time rooms have already been assigned, it doesn’t matter if the waiting student lives on or off campus, according to Quinley.

To deal with the greater demand for housing, the college has kept the temporary modular housing on north campus. Athern was supposed to be torn down this year but instead sophomores promised housing in Mudd-Blaisdell basement were moved to the trailers a week before school began.

Quinley said she doesn’t know when the trailers will be torn down, but believes the situation to be better than it was three years ago, when some doubles in Lyon were converted into triples.

Interviews with students living in the trailers by TSL found both complaints and positive reactions to the trailers. Most students blamed the large freshmen class for the situation.

Sarah Cusser ’06 said she feels separated from her friends, but added, “When else in my life will I be able to tell people I live in a trailer?”

Sophomore Dan Elitzer echoed Cusser’s comments. “It has been nice having a large air-conditioned room, but it has been hard living away from my friends on South Campus,” Elitzer explained.

The process of putting people in sponsor groups was difficult this year. Head Sponsor, Tony Forte ’04 said that at first there weren’t enough rooms for all the freshmen so the housing committee had to create a new plan and convert some study lounges into doubles.

A decline in the size of the freshmen class over the summer by about ten students helped ease the crunch, Forte said. In the end only one more sponsor group was created.

Dean of the College Gary Kates said that departments have been able to easily absorb the large freshmen class. “I haven't noticed anything, although I am aware of the size of the class,” Kates said.

Problems such as high enrollment in introductory chemistry and economics classes existed before this year, according to Kates.

Pomona is not alone in facing rising class sizes and higher yields. Across the country selective colleges and universities have also seen rising yield rates.

Yale University’s incoming class of 2007 was four percent larger then what the admissions office had predicted, leading to a shortage of freshmen rooms for them as well. To compensate, the university converted singles into doubles and triples into quads, the Yale Daily News reported.