It has been estimated that just more than 31,000 students will call Iowa State and Ames their home for the 2012-13 school year.

This estimate will mean another record breaking year in student enrollment at the university, which already boasted the fall of 2011 as a record breaking year with 29,887 students enrolled.

“It’ll be a squeeze this year,” said ISU President Steven Leath, who has met with directors across the university and feels they are “well prepared” to handle the incoming numbers.

A large incoming freshman class is not the sole contributing factor to the large student body this fall semester.

“We’re doing a better job retaining our students, which is great, but it does mean that your numbers are larger,” Leath said.

Leath; Pete Englin, director of the Department of Residence; and Phillip Caffrey, interim director of Admissions, all attribute rising retention rates to the increasing size of enrollment.

“When our enrollment gets really big, people automatically attribute that to the fact that we’re bringing in larger classes,” Caffrey explained. “But retention plays a really big part in this growth that we’re having.”

Retention in both returning students and students who wish to remain in on-campus housing has grown over the last year.

With more students wanting to live in on-campus housing, the DOR is expecting about 400 students will be living in dens at the start of fall semester. In the fall of 2011, only 175 students temporarily lived in dens around campus.

“We hope it’s a very temporary situation and that it won’t happen in the future,” Leath said.

In August, there will be a request to the Iowa Board of Regents to add 650 to 700 new living spaces to Frederiksen Court in order to help facilitate the growing student population.

“Ideally for us, we would not want to use dens and would like to start the year with a vacancy rate of about 3 to 5 percent because today’s students really like to have choices,” Englin said. “The reality is, the initial assignment may not work perfectly, so it’s nice to have some flexibility.”

This year there will be more than 10,000 students living in on campus facilities. However, Englin predicts between 800 and 1,100 students will leave on-campus living from fall semester to spring semester.

Englin said if there is approval to add on to Frederiksen Court, then they hope to begin building as soon as possible and that less plans will be required because they expect to use the same floor plans with only a few minor modifications to rooms.

“I think we’re believing …Iowa State will continue to attract strong and large classes, and we need to be prepared,” Englin said. “That means not requiring anyone to be on campus, but having the right kinds of places for the mix of students so they ultimately graduate. 

“We need to adapt and do it quickly.”

The Office of Admissions will continue to recruit new students up until the first day of classes. This year’s official student enrollment will be documented on the 10th day of classes.

So far, Caffrey believes the university has seen growth in both in- and out-of-state students for this upcoming semester.

Caffrey said the continuing recruitment of students makes it impossible to predict the actual enrollment because students are constantly “jumping in and out” before school officially starts.

“We’ve not been given any signals that we should slow down or keep the numbers lower. We have a lot of positive momentum here at the university,” Caffrey said. “We’ve never been this successful. … The product we’re selling is so good that it makes it really easy.”

Caffrey and Englin both discussed the “brand” of Iowa State and how it makes it so easy not only to retain students but to have more want to join the community.

Caffrey attributed the beautiful campus, academic programs and social atmosphere on and off campus as to why so many students are choosing Iowa State.

“We’ve put some real effort in advising and in keeping students engaged,” Leath said as to why he feels student retention and enrollment continue to grow. The use of the polling device MAP-Works was also given credit for helping to understand what is and is not working for students.

Leath believes the university will begin to “level out” in terms of student enrollment during the next couple years, but he also expects next year’s enrollment will be a little larger once again.

Admissions has already begun recruiting and admitting students for the 2013-14 school year.

“Our administration is sort of analyzing, right now, what Iowa State’s capacity is,” Caffrey said. “At what point is any further growth detrimental?” 

He also said that though larger classes aids in tuition revenue, there also comes a point when students will struggle to find available classes, times meet with their adviser or places to live.