Housing provides unique challenges and opportunities for UNC transfer students

When Grace Lanava transferred to UNC in 2023, she wanted to join the Transfers United Residential Learning Program, designed to encourage and support wellness, engagement and academic success for transfer students. 

But Lanava was not accepted to the program. With about only 30 allotted beds in Carmichael Residence Hall — this year in Morrison, a South Campus residence hall — the program is highly competitive. So, Lanava had to look elsewhere for housing and found one of the only spots available in an apartment at Shortbread Lofts, located on West Rosemary Street.

"I don't think people know going in as a transfer student that it's going to be 'luck of the draw' of what you can get," she said. "And I [didn't] even know that Chapel Hill housing was supposedly so crazy." 

A lack of housing availability has been a problem for many UNC students for the past two years, Steven Wiley, Carolina Housing's director of administrative services, said.

According to the UNC Facilities Services map, the University has over 9,000 beds. However, after accounting for first-year and graduate student housing, only 5,200 beds are available to upperclassmen and transfer students.

This year, there will be over 200 fewer spots available. Avery Residence Hall, which mostly houses sophomores, will be under renovation as part of the 2019 UNC Facilities Services master plan. 

While the Avery renovations include better accessibility features and central heating and air, there are no temporary housing options available to account for the lost beds, Wiley said. Regardless, he said that housing made sure to communicate to incoming transfer students that they might not get housing. 

Housing greatly impacts transfer students as they enroll later than most traditional students, Aaron Bachenheimer, executive director of Off Campus Student Life and Community Partnerships, said.

“Transfer students are the last group of those students who have access to on-campus housing," he said. "And so, it's less about the timing and more about the fact that we have only so many beds on campus.”

Current students who want to live on campus the following year typically apply during the priority deadline between October and November. Room selection typically occurs a few days after the priority application closes. The transfer and international student housing application opened on May 6 and assignments were made on a first-come, first-served basis.

First-year students are required to have on-campus housing — or live in Granville Towers near campus  — and therefore are guaranteed spots on campus. There are no allotted spaces specifically for transfer students other than what is offered in the Residential Learning Programs.

Samara Stitt transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2023, coming from UNC-Charlotte. She said she knew off-campus living was what she wanted since UNC-Charlotte has a number of students that commute to campus, but she didn’t know the Chapel Hill area and realized during her search that apartments were far from campus, and space was limited almost everywhere.

She found a spot in Union Chapel Hill with amenities and events that provide opportunities to meet other student residents, making up for the far distance to campus. Union also offers a shuttle to and from campus at various times throughout the day. 

In the first couple of weeks, Stitt said she noticed everything, from classes to extracurriculars to housing, was competitive. She said she was excited about this competitiveness, but compared to her old school, UNC-CH was going to push her academically.

“People want to learn,” Stitt said, adding that she was shocked at how often other students raised their hands to participate in class.

Similar to Stitt, Evan Fogelberg knew he didn’t want to live on campus after a bad dorm experience at his previous institution, Arizona State University. 

“It all comes back to having your own space and being able to disconnect from the stress," he said. 

He started searching for off-campus housing in early summer of 2023 by looking at Facebook Marketplace. Like Lanava, Fogelberg said he found one of the few spots left in Shortbread Lofts.

Fogelberg said that he considers himself lucky since housing — both on and off campus — is likely already taken before transfer students even decide which school to attend. Additionally, he said he did not know of any University resources and had to figure housing out on his own.

“That can be kind of daunting for people having to start over completely, make new friends,” he said. “And, you have to reacclimate to a new environment.” 

Even though finding housing was a challenge, Lanava, Fogelberg and Stitt were successful in their efforts to find a home and community in Chapel Hill.

Fogelberg advised incoming students to constantly put themselves out there.

“I feel like, especially transfer students — where if you're like me and you’re going in, knowing nobody — you really got to put in the work to get the most out of the experience,” he said. 

Lanava said that visiting new places with her roommates, meeting new people and forming routines in the first couple of weeks at UNC helped her transition.

“I had a little bit of imposter syndrome,” she said. “But after a few weeks, it just wore off and I felt I had been here, with all the people who were already here a year before me.”

Stitt said she already had friends at UNC, but the first couple of weeks took some time to acclimate to walking the distance to campus and figuring out where everything was.

She said that transfer students must remember to be themselves and trust that they will find their people and achieve their goals. Like Fogelberg, Stitt said even if a student fails or doesn’t feel like they got the most out of an experience, they just have to do it over and over again — and to remember that just like every other UNC student, she belonged. 

“It’s like the quote ‘Tar Heel born, Tar Heel bred,’” Stitt said. “Everyone showed me that."

On June 14, transfer students were notified of their waitlist status for on-campus housing.

This year, Carolina Housing is working toward more proactive efforts to prioritize transfer students' needs by increasing transparency in the University’s communications about housing as well as providing scheduled weekly waitlist position updates and assignment notifications, Wiley said. 

"The biggest thing is, we hear you, we hear your concerns about on-campus housing and expenses," he said. "It’s not lost on us."

Students can find further resources through the student engagement office or speak to Bachenheimer through email, phone or Zoom about their off-campus housing journey.

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