WASHINGTON (Map, News) - As many as 800 current sophomores at the University of Maryland, College Park, could be forced into off-campus housing next fall because of a crunch in available space caused by growing demand among underclassmen, officials have warned.

University administrators have already said that space will not be available to rising seniors. This year, rising juniors are being told they might be better off seeking something off campus.

Scott Young, assistant director for administrative and business services for Resident Life, blames the crunch on higher demand among freshmen to live on campus for academic purposes or to be part of living and learning programs.

In previous years, Young said, as many as 88 percent to 92 percent of incoming freshmen opted to live on campus. During this year, a whopping 95 percent of the school’s 4,150 incoming freshmen chose to do so.

“More freshmen living on campus turn into more sophomores,” he said.

There are about 11,000 spots available on campus, about 2,500 of which are public-private spots at two complexes, and more than 25,000 undergraduates.

Rising juniors will get priority choice at the university’s public-private on-campus housing facilities, Young said, but he doesn’t expect that to lessen housing woes in the future.

To help the rising class of juniors get an early assessment of what their housing needs may be come fall, the university in December did a lottery drawing in which students were assigned a random number. Students who got low numbers can rest easy. They will probably get a space, Young said.

Roughly 93 percent of the sophomore class, which has a little more than 3,000 students, responded, Young said, though he added that he expects that at least 1,800 of those would opt to find off-campus apartments or placements in fraternities or sororities.

But what about the remaining 1,200 rising juniors?

“In our best-case scenario, we believe we’ll be able to house 800 to 900 of those,” Young said.

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com