Study Abroad housing selection
For those Deacs staying on campus for Thanksgiving, please be aware of this information from our Student Health Service:
Student Health Service will be closed starting tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 26th at 5 PM through Monday, Dec. 2nd at 8:15 AM. A registered nurse will be available for telephone consultations while the clinic is closed for urgent medical concerns. Please call 336-758-5218. Follow the prompts to speak to the phone consult nurse. If you have a student that has a health concern, there is also a list of off campus medical providers.
Today’s Daily Deac is a partnership with Residence Life and Housing. It’s now the point of the semester when students abroad may have questions about how the housing process will work for them when they return in the spring.
For families of first-year students and sophomores, it would be equally helpful for you to read this so you have a sense of what will come if your student goes abroad in the fall. There are tradeoffs you make by going abroad in the fall vs. spring, and students want to make those decisions with eyes wide open.
How is housing assigned? All students studying abroad in fall 2019 will be assigned a selection time on December 2nd. Selection times are not in any way related to GPA; they are random based on the number of semesters on campus (Study Abroad counts as a semester on campus, Summer School does not). Students will be able to see available openings on campus December 6th, then will go online on December 11th to select from rooms available at their login time.
Does Wake Forest hold double rooms open for juniors returning from abroad? No. Students returning from abroad fill in vacant bed spaces left by students who go abroad in the spring, transfer, take a semester off, etc. In the Spring of 2020, there will be rooms in residence halls campus-wide, including some double and single rooms in Luter Hall and some double and single rooms in Efird Hall. There are upwards of 500 students abroad in the fall, so these rooms will most likely go quickly to students with early selection times.
What are the chances my student will get to live in a double room with another friend who had been abroad? Students will have the opportunity to form a roommate group of two and select an open double if available. Students will not be able to select an open double room unless they have a roommate in the first round of selecting times. Students without a roommate may 1) select a space in a double already occupied, 2) select a single if available, or 3) select among open spaces after 5 pm EST on December 11.
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 selection process.
What if my student has a medical accommodation request? Medical accommodations are reviewed by the Housing Accommodations Review Committee, made up of staff from Residence Life and Housing, Learning Assistant Center and Disability Services, and Student Health Service. Families should know that in most cases, students’ medical accommodations can be met in on-campus housing. More information here.
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. In years where housing is at capacity, some students have been approved to live off-campus, this year included. Students were emailed in July asking if they wanted to live off campus, and if so to formally petition to live off campus (or submit a disability-related reason for accommodation to be considered). Petitions were reviewed throughout the summer and were granted until all we reached capacity for on-campus occupancy. 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 should current first-year students and sophomores know about going abroad in the fall semester? Students who go abroad in the fall should be aware that it may be unlikely they will be able to select a room in the building of their choice and/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.
— by Betsy Chapman, Ph.D. (;92, MA ’94) and colleagues in the Office of Residence Life and Housing