In article ,
Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article ,
Louise wrote:
On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 19:39:07 EST, (Robyn
Kozierok) wrote:

Most of the schools in Ontario (Canada) had this rule back when I was
in school. I don't know if they still do.

I never heard of it in 1979 when I was applying (W'loo, Toronto,
Queen's, McMaster, Guelph, etc), and it definitely wasn't the case at
the one I attended.

I was a few years later than you, and I am pretty sure that frosh had
to stay in residence at Waterloo, where I ended up. I don't remember
the details of the other universities as well though. I am guessing that
the double-cohort may have caused a lot more flexibility with dorm
space being at a premium.


Waterloo in the 80's didn't require that first year students stay in a
dorm. At the time residence space was at such a premium that not only
was it not required, there was a small chance that you would not be
offered a room at all even if you wanted one. My DH lived quite some
distance off-campus during his first year. The university has since
moved to the model of all are guaranteed an offer of a room, but one
is not required to accept. Some students chose to find off-campus
housing, and others continue to live at home as their parent(s) live
within commuting distance.

The double-cohort (which is when Ontario eliminated grade 13, so two
groups of students graduated at the same time) meant that a lot of new
residence space was built so that the guarantee of an offer for a dorm
for incoming first year students could still hold. Although I seem to
recall some universities did offer incentives to students who chose to
live off-campus to handle the crunch.

An interesting parenting question comes out of the double-cohort. For
the first time a noticeable number of students were arriving on campus
at age 17 (since elementary and high schools use Jan 1 as the cutoff
date). So the universities had to decide whether the students should
be treated as adults. At what point should we as parents no longer
have access to our kids' student records? At what point should we as
parents no longer be going to the school to solve problems for our
kids?

Carol Hulls