Salient has received conflicting reports concerning the number of empty rooms in well-known Victoria hall of residence, Weir House.
The Hall is capable of holding up to 313 residents in a variety of single, set and double rooms. However, a resident has reported to Salient that they have been told there are currently only 301 people living in the hall.
“There are lots of empty rooms here but there are empty rooms in all the hostels,” they said. “Someone actually brought this up at a floor meeting the other day, wanting to know if he could turn the empty room next to him into the party room.”
Another student claims that at least one double room is housing two beds but only one person, and that there is at least one set room with an empty outer room.
However, Victoria’s Accommodation Service says there is only one empty room in Weir, and that this is due to a late withdrawal. The Service says they are in the process of filling this room.
Some have speculated that the empty rooms are a direct result of new entry requirements that Victoria has placed on 2011’s influx of first-year students.
Due to funding limits, Victoria University was forced to introduce further admission requirements, over and above University Entrance. These require students to achieve particular grade point averages in their NCEA studies.
First-years are offered places in halls of residence by mid-October but applications for enrolment are accepted up until the end of February.
It is also possible there was less demand for some halls of residence this year due to the opening of the new Joan Stevens Hall of Residence on The Terrace.
“The Joan Stevens Hall on the Terrace opened for the first time in 2011, and it has proven popular with first-year students,” said a spokesperson for the Accommodation Service.
However, they also said that “across the board, application numbers have been about the same as previous years.”