Students abroad need additional planning

Students looking to go abroad for a semester must find housing for the other semester — which presents several hoops to jump through, especially if they plan to go abroad in the fall.

Penn Abroad Office Resources Coordinator Jonathan Hakim estimates that each year, about 400 students go abroad during the fall and 100 go abroad in the spring. This makes for a much larger demand for single-semester housing for the spring semester than for the fall semester.

Abroad in the Fall

To return to on-campus housing during the spring semester after being abroad, students must apply for housing online starting on Oct. 1.

Students cannot ensure that they will be housed with friends unless they identify a spring vacancy in a friend’s room. For instance, a four-person apartment in a high rise may have four residents during the fall semester, but three residents during the spring semester because one will be abroad. This resident must apply to terminate his or her housing for the spring semester, and the student returning from abroad must list this room on his or her housing application.

Another option is to find a friend who is graduating in December. This also creates a vacancy in a room for the spring semester, and a student returning from abroad may apply to fill it.

Students cannot hold a room on campus during the semester they are abroad.

To live off campus, a student must sign a year-long lease and then find fall and summer subletters, or must sublet from a student who will be abroad during the spring semester.

However, because about four times as many students go abroad during the fall than during the spring, finding sublets and subletters can be difficult.

College sophomore Carolyn Chen signed a year-long lease for a house at 40th and Spruce streets earlier this month and is in the heat of finding fall and summer subletters.

Though it’s “getting really stressful,” she said she knows people who have found fall subletters, so it’s “not impossible.” She added that she feels being in a sorority has helped her find potential subletters and that two other girls in her house going abroad in the fall have already found tenants.

Abroad in the Spring

Living on campus for only the fall semester requires applying for housing during the regular application process, and then cancelling the assignment for the spring semester by filing early termination paperwork with Penn Housing Services.

The vacancy created during the spring semester may be filled by Penn Housing — with either a friend who has requested the room or another student in need of spring-semester housing.

College sophomore Julie Kranseler, who plans to study abroad in the spring, hopes to follow this system. She has a friend going abroad in the fall and two friends not going abroad. They all want to share the same on-campus apartment and “switch off,” she said.

To live off campus, students can either sign a year-long contract and find spring and summer subletters, or sublet a room for the fall semester.

As illustrated by Chen’s situation, fall subletters are in high demand, and can often cut deals with the student from whom they are subletting.

In addition to simply networking with friends, students can take advantage of the Off-Campus Services housing database, Craiglist or similar listings to find sublets.

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