Study Abroad and Housing

I’m going to be out of the office for a week for Class of ’27’s spring break, so I am preposting some Daily Deacs to run in my absence. Today’s message is about study abroad and housing. No matter your Deac’s year, if he/she plans to study abroad, please read this and be aware of some important considerations.

With the help of my colleagues in Residence Life and Housing, we’ve provided some of the common questions families have about where their student will live following the fall semester abroad.

How is housing assigned?
All students studying abroad in fall 2018 will be assigned a lottery number at random in November. This lottery number will allow them to select from available openings on campus for the spring 2019 semester. Lottery numbers are not in any way related to GPA; they are random. Students will go online in December 2018 to select from rooms available at their login time.

Does Wake Forest hold double rooms open for juniors returning from abroad?
Students returning from abroad fill in vacant bed spaces left by students who go abroad in the spring, transfer, take a semester off, etc.  Due to residence hall renovations, in the spring of 2019, there will be approximately 145 beds in Taylor Residence Hall that had been offline for renovations (these will be mostly double rooms, with some single rooms). 

While there will be some double rooms available open to students with high lottery numbers, historically speaking there have been 400+ students abroad in the fall, so those double rooms will go quickly.

NOTE:  Taylor is the last Quad hall being renovated, so students going abroad in the fall of 2019 will not return to campus in spring 2020 with a large group of open rooms, as had been the case for the last 3 years.

Where will the open beds be available?
Other than the estimated 145 beds available in Taylor Residence Hall, students returning from abroad typically live in Palmer or Piccolo, one of the Quad residence halls, or Luter; normally there will be one bed open in a double room, so they will be joining a new roommate. There are occasionally beds available in the North Campus halls, but those are rare. Students will be able to see available spaces in early December.

My student is involved in Greek Life. What are the chances he/she can move to the fraternity/sorority hall upon returning from abroad in the fall?
Greek halls assign students to their blocks. Your student should check with his/her Greek organization to see if there is the ability to move onto the hall. If space is not available, the student would then go through the regular lottery.

What are the chances my student will get to live in a double room with another friend who had been abroad?
Approximately 15-20%. Therefore, students who go abroad in the fall should do so understanding they will likely live with a roommate not of their choosing for the following spring.

Can my student live off campus?
Wake Forest has a three year residency requirement, so students returning from abroad (unless they are in their 4th year at Wake Forest) are required to live on campus. On occasion, there are students approved to live off campus, but this is only if we do not have enough beds on campus or if there are compelling individual circumstances that make it impossible for the student to live on campus.

Students can petition to live off campus, and that petition will be reviewed by Residence Life and Housing. A petition to live off campus is for one student only (in other words, the petitioner cannot apply to live off campus with a roommate or set of friends).

If a family rents or leases an apartment or house off campus and their student has not been approved to live off campus, that family will still be required to pay for a residence hall room as part of the residency requirement.

What if my student has a medical accommodation request?
Medical accommodations are reviewed by the Housing Accommodation Review Committee, which makes recommendations to Residence Life and Housing. Families should know that historically, over 98% of students’ medical accommodations have been met in on-campus housing.

What should students know about going abroad in the fall semester?
Students who go abroad in the fall should be aware that it is unlikely they will be able to select a room in the building of their choice or with the roommate of their choice. The majority of students returning from abroad end up filling an empty bed with another student, who they may or may not know. If your student is very particular about which building he/she lives in, or wants to live with a particular roommate, he/she should consider going abroad in the spring. That way, students can choose their residence hall and roommate for the fall semester (when many other juniors will be abroad) and have a better likelihood of getting what they want.