Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 26, 1987)
7TT vLh here’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!... Dorothy was a smart chic. She knew a good thing when she saw it. There IS no place like home. But the question is: Where is home? For students here at Texas A&M, home can range from a shoe-box size dorm room to a Victorian-style fraternity house, from a 12 feet by 50 feet mobile home to a two-bedroom apartment. £ large percentage of the student body lives right in the heart of Texas A&M: on campus. With room for close to 10,000 students, the on-campus housing system offers residents a variety of options. However, with the closing of the three civilian women’s dorms in the Corps area, 600 fewer spaces will be available for the Fall 1987 semester. Also, the Housing Office has, at this time, received more freshman housing applications than ever before, according to John White of the Housing Office. These two facts could result in housing problems. But White says he thinks more positions will be open for the Fall 1987 semester as a result of the Housing Office’s new policy requiring students to sign a nine-month, two- semester lease. In the past, students were only required to apply for housing for one semester at a time. There are 37 residence halls on campus, 28 of which are filled with civilian students and nine dorms for members of the Corps of Cadets. All cadets are guaranteed housing as long as they remain in the Corps. Any student who has already lived in a residence hall for one semester is also guaranteed housing as long as he wishes. Newcomers to the University do not all receive on-campus housing assignments. They must send in a $200 housing deposit and an application for on-campus housing. Freshman housing applications are then placed in a lottery, where each is assigned a number. Based on this randomized system, freshmen are offered on- campus housing. Returning and transfer students apply at the same time as freshmen, but their applications are handled separately from the lottery. Instead, such on waiting lists according to the date their housing application and $200 deposit are received in the Housing Office. White says that each fall approximately 4800 people apply for on- campus housing, 3800 of whom are freshmen. Based on past semesters, he said that only 3200 • places open up after spring housing signups. Available housing space is assigned according to the following: 80 percent to freshmen, 10 percent to returning students and 10 percent to transfer students. Prices for dorms range from $332 a semester for ramp-style halls to $825 a semester for the Commons and the modular-style halls. ^-Cvlthough A&M boasts such a large on-campus housing system, nearly two-thirds of the student body commutes to school each day from their home- ThreeA&M students and one West Texas State University graduate share the spacious home pictured above. Upper left: Lisa Jones, a third year vet student, and Lisa Guide, the WTSU graduate, play with their new puppies on their front porch swing. Bottom left: The four-bedroom house, which the women rent, is located about 20 miles out of town on 30 acres of wooded land.