JMU receives record number of applications
Posted on February 7, 2008
James Madison University received more than 19,350 freshmen applicants for the 2008-09 academic year, a four percent increase from last year’s 18,600.
According to Director of Admissions Michael D. Walsh there are a total of 3,960 spaces available for the upcoming freshman class, an increase from this year’s 3,850-student freshman class.
With over 17,000 students already crowding the campus, it is hard for students and faculty to imagine anymore people roaming the grounds.
“Each year, the freshman class increases a little more than 100 [students],” Walsh said. “There are more students graduating from high school. So by increasing enrollment, [JMU] is able to accommodate more qualified students.”
With the applicant pool increasing each year, the standards and quality of the students has increased as well, according to Walsh. However, there is limited space on campus, so qualified students that they might have accepted years before have been turned down.
Students are a little wary about how the school will be able to accommodate more students, because the increase will affect the traffic on the roads and campus throughout the Harrisonburg community.
“I feel the school is crowded already,” freshman Christine Dang said. “How will they accommodate more students on campus when on-campus housing is so tight?”
The Office of Residence Life has been working on this issue by adding more rooms and housing on campus.
“In fall 2008, Hoffman Hall will come back after being closed for renovation. This will add 156 beds for the [upcoming] fall,” said Maggie Evans, director of Residence Life.
Residence Life was able to offer housing contracts to nearly all current freshmen who applied to live on campus next year, according to Evans.
A new residence hall is expected to open in the fall of 2009 in addition to the 32 existing residence halls.
“We have broken ground for a new 420 bed residence hall in the Skyline area,” Evans said. “[It] will be named Shenandoah Hall, and will be very similar in design to Chesapeake and Potomac Halls.”
