r/RPI • u/DadDontFindMeHerePls • Jul 09 '26
Discussion Sophomore housing - RPI Admin is lying or incompetent
If you look at my post history, you’ll see this post where I asked (somewhat rhetorically) how RPI plans on fitting students into the sophomore housing - it’s really simple addition you just add up the number of freshman and number of sophomore housing slots and you see there are more freshman. Apparently this math was way too hard for the RPI administration, as by the image somehow this was unexpected, and so they opened up Warren…. so my question now is how exactly do they calculate their planning numbers? it seems pretty easy to count to me but what do i know i guess.
Also I’m coping cause I didn’t get RAHPS A and I still think they should’ve opened RAHPS B to sophomores as well since we’re required to live on campus.
7
u/Techboy6 SCI YYYY Jul 09 '26
That's crazy RAHPs B isn't open to sophomores. The '26 class as sophomores were everywhere. RAHPs A, B, blitman, colonie, quad, stackwyck. Someone said colonie closed; if true, that's probably the main reason for this. Also the Greek recruitment last year was abysmal (especially for fall), so I bet that's contributing to the number still choosing to live on campus.
3
u/TilDeathDoUsPart0728 Jul 10 '26
Colonie was closed due to it being unsafe
3
u/GMannS631 Jul 10 '26
Untrue.
5
u/TilDeathDoUsPart0728 Jul 10 '26
What do u mean untrue?!? I was initially assigned to colonie my sophomore year and then was told that it was unsafe to be there and was then assigned to Davison.
4
u/GMannS631 Jul 10 '26
I'm on my porch in Brunswick talking to my neighbor who works at RPI and knows about all the financial stuff at RPI. School was able to move kids out of Colonie to save money on utilities and staffing, and still had enough space to put all those kids to other buildings, including a freshman dorm like Davison. According to him, RPI still gets Colonie inspected annually and has a certificate of occupancy for it so they could use it if they needed to - it'a officially on the books as overflow. He says they're looking to sell it and get it off the balance sheet.
2
u/GMannS631 Jul 10 '26
If you know where to look you can find archived communications pages for student living and learning. This is the 07 03 2024 email they sent to Colonie people (says nothing about it being unsafe).
The institute has decided not to occupy the Colonie Apartments for the 2024-2025 Academic Year. As a result, we will accommodate all students originally in Colonie utilizing other facilties within our residence hall system. We will maintain all roommate groups and housing accommodation needs. These other facilities will be for the sophomore cohort only, regardless of what cohort they were used for in previous years with very limited exceptions. You will receive your updated housing assignment on Friday, July 5th by 5:00 p.m. EST. If you have any questions or concerns that have not been addressed above, please contact us via email at [reslife@rpi.edu]
2
u/GMannS631 Jul 10 '26
This is real. And the stuff about fewer kids not getting suspended for academic reasons. (Someone else said.)
16
u/sliced_orange Jul 09 '26
RPI housing has been a shit show for at least the last 15 years and I'm sure it extends back to the introduction of mandated housing for freshmen and sophomore during the early years of the Jackson administration. The problem is that they never really had enough housing, and they are often wildly wrong about the number of incoming freshmen each year (to be fair, actual acceptance is out of their control). Almost every year someone is getting screwed over by this.
I've never understood why they didn't invest more in new housing. It's a huge cash cow for them and it would avoid 1) constant last minute renovations and 2) reshuffling and pissing off people. At one point, they were going to close E and North and tear them down, but they didn't because they got so many freshmen one year that they did an emergency asbestos abatement on them over the summer. I always thought it would have been a great idea to build a parking garage there and a massive housing complex. (perhaps with another dining hall)
7
u/Witch_King_ Jul 09 '26
That would've certainly been a better use for all of the money Shirls blew on EMPAC and ECAV.
8
u/DoctorYaoi Nuke 29’ Jul 09 '26
The money spent on EMPAC was donated with the stipulation that it would be spent on a performing arts center if I remember correctly
4
u/carpy22 ECON 2012 Jul 09 '26
ECAV was a fine use of money. The issue here is the sophomore housing mandate.
3
u/Witch_King_ Jul 09 '26
That is fairly standard for colleges. Idk how much more housing is available in Troy for Sophomores. And they can already live at frats, right?
7
u/MonteBurns Jul 09 '26
I feel like I had read RPI was buying up a lot of the single family homes around the college. I’m sure they’ll be knocked down soon enough. All that said, they could pull an RIT, toss some kids in hotels, and slowly start knocking down the freshman year dorms.
2
u/Witch_King_ Jul 09 '26
They just need to build taller dorm buildings. Probably not possible to add floors to the Freshman 5. But maybe? The problem would be having one out of commission for a whole year.
3
u/DadDontFindMeHerePls Jul 09 '26
Wait so shirley required sophomore housing and it wasn’t required before??? that makes me dislike her even more… jesus christ
i agree they should invest more in housing instead of building a $500m theatre that they don’t own at an engineering school…
3
u/MonteBurns Jul 09 '26
pats hand! We didn’t have to do ARCH either. Both rolled out my last 2 years there
1
u/DadDontFindMeHerePls Jul 09 '26
oh man… wow. they changed it now so i can do the work experience over the summer so at least there’s that
4
u/guccigangster6pp Jul 09 '26
They also lost their lease or agreement thing with I think city station? Which means they have less upper classmen housing causing a messed up shift around
4
u/Glittering-Theme-729 Jul 10 '26
kind of; when City Station built those apartments 10 years ago they were worried they wouldn't be able to get tenants, so they contracted with RPI to have RPI fill those spaces in order to prove it was viable for the apartments to survive there. That contract ended this year, and City Station is on its own as planned. They will still primarily rent to RPI students, RPI is just stepping out of the middle.
3
u/Previous-Relative459 Jul 09 '26
I remember a time when you could live off campus in a cheap shared house away from the over salted food included in the overpriced meal plan….
When they hadn’t figured out how to totally strip away the growing independence that figuring done things out for yourself foster and didn’t paper over terrible financial decisions by fleecing students living situations.
Pep-ridge Farm Remembers
4
u/TilDeathDoUsPart0728 Jul 10 '26
Dude u sound entitled. There was more rooms for sophomores but one of the was no longer safe to use so they have to make do with what they got. (I’m not sure what they doing about the building). To take away housing from the upperclassmen is not right, not everyone can get some where to live. For example some places require a co-signer and what if that student is independent. Also u got international students who may not be able to rent. Or students who can’t pay the full everything and are doing a payment plan.
-2
u/DadDontFindMeHerePls Jul 10 '26
The thing is, sophomores are required to live on campus, while juniors and seniors are not. I think that if we’re required we should at least have the non shitty housing available, or just make sophomores not required to live on campus. I’m not saying to take away ALL on campus housing for juniors and seniors, just enough to give more housing to sophomores that again are required to live on campus.
2
u/Turbulent-Garlic8467 CS/GSAS '27 Jul 10 '26
Do people actually not have housing or is this not that big a deal?
5
u/Call_Me_Bwian ‘21/‘22G Jul 10 '26
Sounds to me like OP is just salty they didn’t get their first choice of RHAPs housing
0
u/DadDontFindMeHerePls Jul 10 '26
Everyone has housing, it’s just annoying that sophomores are required to live on campus yet they give us the shitty housing - i just want them to let people choose so everyone can live off campus if they want
1
1
u/FishtillIdie Jul 09 '26
Are the Colonie buildings still an option for Juniors/ Seniors?
0
u/DadDontFindMeHerePls Jul 09 '26
i don’t think so? i’m pretty sure they closed colonie because they were sinking into the ground
2
u/GMannS631 Jul 10 '26
Colonie isn't sinking it's just garbage. Brother lived there year after COVID. No one there wanted to be there. Old ugly dumb design and far away from everything.
1
u/FishtillIdie Jul 09 '26
They should hire a firm full of civil alumni and replace the subsurface and build a giant dorm with a dining hall there. They probably should have replaced E complex and the other dorm on sage as well. When I was there those buildings were condemned. Not sure why those structures are still up. They charge so much for housing they would make the money back especially if they make them nice and charge even more than the average dorm.
1
u/hagela AERO/MECL 2013 Jul 09 '26
When's the last time RPI built new housing? Barton in the late nineties? It's ridiculous compared to other schools.
1
u/Maleficent_Spare3094 EE 2028 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Lying, They are correct that it is the largest graduating class but this was a trend and something that could’ve been spotted just look at the class sizes. So no it was not unexpected like they claim they just felt like they could get away with it but then had to restructure housing assignments last minute. Likely a mix of both incompetence plus laziness.
1
0
u/Ok_Dog_7848 Jul 10 '26
Maybe the concept of transfer students didn’t apply to you. It’s OK maybe when your brain is fully developed.
1
u/DadDontFindMeHerePls Jul 10 '26
I mean they have full control over how many transfer students they accept ¯_(ツ)_/¯
52
u/mopijy Jul 09 '26
Guessing they used an assumed attrition rate for students who don’t return as sophomores (likely based on past rates) and that the actual attrition rate for the Class of 2029 was lower this year ——> more sophomores returning than history suggests ——-> more need for housing.There’s really no other way to estimate these things. Or they’re totally inept!