Southeast Missouri State University announced that beginning today, Aug. 9, students who meet the Universitys residency requirement are being waitlisted for on-campus housing.Southeast has established a requirement that all full-time students live on campus for two years. In accordance with the residency requirement, all full-time students must live on campus unless they meet one of six exemptions to the living on campus residency requirement:

• Are living with lineal relatives (parent, grandparent) or legal guardian and commuting from their residence within 50 miles of Cape Girardeau.
• Are 21 years of age by the beginning of the semester for which they are enrolled.
• Have met the sophomore exemption by completing 30 credit hours of coursework within the first year of living on campus and achieving a 3.25 grade point average while remaining in good judicial standing.
• Identify as a military veteran.
• Have completed at least 57 credit hours, which are accepted by the University towards earning a degree from Southeast.
• Are married and/or have dependent children in residence.
• Have lived in University housing at Southeast for two years.

The waitlist was announced in light of a large number of new and current students wanting to live on campus, said Dr. Debbie Below, vice president for enrollment management and student success and dean of students. The fall 2017 semester at Southeast begins Aug. 21.We experienced a nine percent increase in the fall 2016 freshmen class and a class of similar size is expected this year. Additionally, the retention of first year students is currently outpacing recent years, she said, and Southeasts residence hall system is at its capacity. This is the second consecutive year the University anticipates enrolling 1,800 freshmen.To date, the University already has more than 3,100 housing contracts in place for this fall, said Dr. Kendra Skinner, director of Residence Life at Southeast. She says Southeast currently has 110 more housing contracts than it had at this time last year, and the number continues to grow. The University expects to open its residence halls at 100 percent occupancy.Southeast had 3,001 students living in its residence halls on move-in day in August 2016.We are full everywhere, Skinner said. There are no floors we are holding. We have identified every traditional residence hall room and have looked at assigning students into them.Because of the large number of students seeking on campus housing, Residence Life officials say they limited private rooms on campus this fall and have arranged for rooms traditionally used as showcase rooms for prospective students to be used for student housing.Additionally, the University is reopening Cheney Hall for the fall 2017 semester to provide temporary housing for students. As spaces become available in the housing system, students will be reassigned to a permanent space throughout the fall semester.Skinner confirmed they are working with each student to identify a housing accommodation that meets their needs and will work through this process through the opening of the campus. Students who are not required to live on campus can request to have their name added to a housing waitlist. As space is available, the Office of Residence Life will contact these students to confirm their housing assignment.We want to have as many people living on campus as want to, however, for students who are not required to live on campus and have not previously requested to live on campus, we can no longer guarantee we will have a space for them when classes start.Any student who requested on-campus housing prior to Aug. 9 is not impacted by this waitlist process.For details on the waitlist process or for more information, please contact the Office of Residence Life at (573) 651-2274 or residencelife@semo.edu.