Students will find their dorms packed this year.

On-campus housing will be near capacity at 4,950 residents, said Brian Kuster, director of Housing and Residence Life. Increased demand for housing almost left 160 freshmen without beds on campus.

“We will probably open completely full,” Kuster said. “We may even have RAs with roommates.”

It’s common for dorms to be full, but overcrowding usually sorts itself out in the first week because there are always about 50 people who don’t show up, he said.

Demand for housing increased among juniors, seniors and graduate students, who are not required to live on campus. Western also retained more sophomores, who traditionally must live on campus said Howard Bailey, vice president for student affairs.

Kuster said the increased demand isn’t surprising because the demand has been growing for three to four years.

Officials are considering new housing options, such as apartments that would house living-learning communities for upperclassmen and families to alleviate some of the increased demand, Bailey said.

“We’re aware that not all students want traditional housing,” Bailey said.

Western recently acquired property on Kentucky Street that HRL wants to use for these apartments, Kuster said.

To fix the immediate problem of overcrowding this year, HRL sent an e-mail in June to juniors and seniors signed up for on-campus housing that said they could cancel their housing without a penalty, Kuster said.

About 60 to 70 juniors and seniors canceled their housing, Kuster said.

That still left HRL 100 beds short, so in late July, officials sent some sophomores e-mails that said they could also cancel their housing without penalty, he said.

To be eligible, sophomores had to have lived on campus for at least two semesters and have at least 20 hours completed, Kuster said.

Within a week, 100 sophomores had responded and canceled their housing, Kuster said.

There have been other years when some sophomores were allowed to cancel their housing because of overcrowding, he said.

Sophomores are usually required to live on campus, and that requirement won’t be changing, President Gary Ransdell said.

“We had to be a little bit flexible to get all incoming freshmen beds,” Ransdell said. “We relaxed some policies, not eliminated them.”

But Kuster said officials could re-evaluate that policy in the future.

If they do, it’s likely that only sophomores with a certain GPA could get out of the housing requirement, he said.

For now, next year’s sophomores should plan on having to live on campus, Kuster said.