Last year, when only 980 students moved in on Friday and an overwhelming 2,857 moved in on Saturday, students like Isaac Kichak said they struggled to fight crowds while settling in to the residence halls.

“It was pretty difficult because everyone was pulling up to the entrance where you unload [at the same time],” the sophomore in chemical engineering said. “And everyone was trying to get up and down the stairs at the same time, so it was just overcrowded. The roads where most of the dorms are were also really busy the whole time.”


With about 8,000 students moving in to the dorms and on-campus apartments, University Housing officials made the decision to allow move-in to begin on Friday this year.

Susan Grant, director of University Housing, said the department made the change to comply with the countless requests her department received asking for move-in to start on Friday instead of Saturday.

“More and more people wanted to have some time and parents were willing to take that time off work,” Grant said. “We had so many requests to move in on Friday, we thought, we don’t need to go through the process of granting a request, we should just move [the first day of regular move-in] back [to Friday].”

Kyle Jones, a freshman in parks, recreation and tourism, said his move into Tucker Friday afternoon was relatively easy.

“There are going to be a lot more people [moving in] today,” Jones said. “So it was nice having everything in early on Friday.”

The decision to start move in a day earlier also seems to have been beneficial to resident advisers, said Tim Gubitz, an R.A. in Tucker.

Gubitz, a senior in electrical engineering, said 12 of his 40 residents moved in Friday.


“Everything was smooth and it gave everyone a chance to get their stuff straight,” Gubitz said. “It has been a steady stream, so that’s better than having five people standing at your door all trying to get in at once.”

After 1,838 students settled in Friday, there were fewer students left to move in Saturday.

Jackson Yuen, a freshman in First Year College who moved in Saturday morning, said the amount of people moving in came as a pleasant surprise.

“I didn’t expect such a small amount of people,” Yuen said.

According to Gubitz, the only problem was a relative lack of activity in the dorm last night.

“The only drawback was a lot of residents were looking for stuff to do and it was quiet,” Gubitz said.