Boston University may have enrolled a few too many students in its incoming Class of 2025, at least according to some BU students. It seems that some incoming first-year students weren’t able to reside in traditional first-year housing this year. They were instead placed in upperclass housing because, they allege, the school overenrolled the Class of 2025, likely a result of the pandemic. The school apparently intended to enroll around 3,100 students, but word on the street is that the BU Class of 2025 consists of up to 5,300 students — a huge disparity. These numbers are not confirmed (and the numbers do vary fairly significantly), but they do appear in an article on the BU Class of 2025 enrollment in BU’s student newspaper along with some other speculated figures.

As according to a piece in The Daily Free Press by Olga Benacerraf entitled “Students claim BU overenrolled Class of 2025, causing unconventional housing assignments for incoming freshmen,” “This incoming class of 2025 was selected from a ‘record-breaking pool’ of 75,733 applicants — a 24% increase from the previous year. BU reported that out of the pool of candidates, 18.3% were admitted, meaning 13,884 applicants received acceptance letters. According to the BU Admissions website, this resulted in a freshman class size of 3,200 students. But BU spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email that ‘enrollment for the incoming class is expected to be 4,000.’ The University’s number on the website is consistent with past acceptance figures: BU Today reported last March that Admissions aimed to enroll 3,100 students for the Class of 2024 and enrolled 3,194 students the year before that. But Aiden Cardozo, a rising sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences who works as a student facilitator for BU Orientation, said he heard from his supervisors ‘and various administrators that [BU has] been massively overenrolled.’ Cardozo said of the 5,516 students that had enrolled for Orientation, around 5,300 showed up for the event.”

It will be interesting to learn how many students BU actually enrolled in its Class of 2025. Is it 3,200? 4,000? 5,300? This is a figure that BU officials surely know so let’s end the speculation. The school should release it and stop being so cagey. If they overenrolled the Class of 2025, it’s time to come clean because it seems the university has some irritated students on its hands.