Campus · August 27, 2025
About 2,540 Students Move In, the First Year of Appointment-Based Arrivals
Thirty-minute arrival windows and 280 volunteers cut the median curbside wait to about 24 minutes, down from more than an hour.
About 2,540 students moved into UW–Porter Falls residence halls over three days ending Tuesday. It was the first year that first-year arrivals were scheduled in 30-minute appointment windows instead of an open first-come morning. The median time a family spent at the curb was about 24 minutes, down from 68 minutes last year. Housing staff timed it with a clipboard and a stopwatch at six unloading zones.
The change grew out of the August 2024 move-in. A water-main break on Founders Drive and the open-arrival system together produced a line of cars that, according to Campus Safety, briefly reached the county highway. This year families chose a window when they confirmed their housing. About 91 percent arrived inside it.
Roughly 280 returning students, staff and faculty worked the unloading crews, including most of the football and volleyball rosters and, for two hours on Sunday, the chancellor. Crews carried an estimated 9,000 boxes. One lofted bed went up four flights of Heritage Hall stairs because it would not fit in the elevator, and has since been named.
“The goal was that no family should spend the first hour of college sitting in a parked car. We mostly got there. Next year we’ll fix the two zones where we didn’t.”
— Petra Nystrom, Director of Housing
The halls opened at 97 percent of capacity, up from 94 percent last year, with no temporary triples. A small waiting list for single rooms is expected to clear by mid-September. The housing office said that if enrollment keeps growing, next year’s halls are likely to be full.
Welcome Week runs through Sunday. It includes First Forge pewter pours for new students in the Founders Hall high bay on Thursday and Friday, college meetings, and the involvement fair, which has moved to the fields beside Millwright Stadium while the North Campus lawn is fenced for geothermal drilling. Classes start Tuesday, September 2.
Families with questions after move-in can find contacts on the residence halls page. Next year’s arrival process is outlined on move-in, and the full Welcome Week schedule is on orientation.
Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. The move-in, the volunteers, the counts and the named bed are invented, and nobody actually moved into a real residence hall.