Virginia Tech addresses potential fall overcrowding

BLACKSBURG, Va. – There's a high number of new Hokies, and Virginia Tech faces an overcrowding problem this fall.

Monday, Tech touted its incoming freshman class is the largest, most diverse and competitive class ever, but there are still questions about how everyone is going to fit.  

Virginia Tech sits in the heart of Blacksburg on 2,600 acres, but the biggest equation on campus right now is where to put everyone.

“We can't build a building this summer,” said Tracy Vosburgh, university spokeswoman.

Vosburgh sat down with 10 News and talked about what exactly happened.

She says the school's typical formula used to determine how many accepted students will actually show up in the fall didn't work this year.

Simply put, more people want to join the Hokie family.

“We knew there was a high interest, but we were modeling it and we were looking at it and this sort of ... last minute broke the model and so we got to figure out what happened or how it happened, but simply more students decided we were the first choice school,” Vosburgh said.

She says it may be because of the school's focus on the STEM field.

As reported previously, Virginia Tech is building an innovation campus in northern Virginia to pipeline talent to Amazon's HQ2.

Growth is good news, but it's causing some headaches for school leaders in the meantime.

“We're certainly trying to be creative and one of the suggestions on the table is maybe this is a year we let freshmen think about living off campus.”

That decision isn't a done deal just yet.

Vosburgh says leaders want to be mindful of providing the Blacksburg experience.

“I feel the uniqueness of Virginia Tech and that it is a community and there is absolutely no intention for that to go away. As a matter of fact, we have a lot of pride in that,” Vosburgh said. “The plan is that we will keep what is good about Virginia Tech and we will make it available to more students."


About the Author:

After working and going to school in Central Virginia for over five years, Lindsey’s made her way back home to the mountains.