UConn Students Moving Into Residence Halls With Tight Guidelines

STORRS, CT — Students began moving into University of Connecticut resident halls Friday under a tight set of guidelines imposed for the 2021-22 academic year with the coronavirus still raging across the region.

The most glaring was a mask requirement inside all campus buildings. Non-students were not being allowed in dining halls in an effort to reduce crowding and visitors inside the residence halls are limited to family and/or others helping the students move in.

About 11,000 students will be living on the main UConn campus in Storrs this year. That marks about 90 percent of residents in a typical year with the remaining rooms being set aside for students testing positive for the virus who need t be isolated while "under care," university officials said.

About 400 students will live in Stamford student housing.

Students already vaccinated totaled about 94 percent as of Wednesday, university officials said. Students who have requested and received vaccination exemptions must adhere to additional precautionary measures, including weekly testing, they added.

Vaccinations are being made available available on campus during move-in weekend.

Overall, nearly 30,000 students will be studying at UConn in the 2021-22 academic year (including undergraduate and graduate levels, medical and dental, and law).

UConn’s Class of 2025 is the first to be admitted under the universityis test-optional admissions pilot program. The freshmen are moving in with "record-high diversity levels" and "an impressive cadre of valedictorians, salutatorians, and new honors program students"

First-year students are moving into the Storrs residence halls starting Friday, followed over the weekend by returning and transfer students, and all Stamford residential students. Fall semester classes are slated to begin Monday.

UConn expects to enroll about 3,700 first-year students at Storrs this fall, along with almost 1,800 first-year students at the regional campuses in Hartford, Stamford, Waterbury, and Avery Point. They will be joined by about 660 students transferring to Storrs from other colleges and universities and about 200 transferring from other institutions to the regional campuses, officials said.

About 46 percent of the incoming Storrs class consists of "students of color," a new high for the campus, officials said.

UConn's test-optional application process began in the spring or 2020 for three years starting with the current admissions cycle, in which students could submit their scores if they wished but would not be penalized or disadvantaged if they chose not to.

The incoming class includes 73 valedictorians, 88 salutatorians, and 554 first-year students whose achievements earned them a spot in the UConn honors program.

UConn received a record number of applications – more than 38,000 – for the Class of 2025, even amid the coronavirus pandemic, including more than 36,000 who specifically requested admission to the Storrs campus.