This year, State College experienced an influx of 40,000 students the week before Penn State's opening football game for the first time in almost 30 years.

While it was expected that there would be much confusion, move-in went as well as planned, said Teresa Davis, director of transportation.

Dana Morschhauser (freshman-engineering) said she thought it would be easier to move in on a Friday or a Saturday, but did not have any complaints about the weekday move-in.

"Everything was handled well and everyone was friendly," she said.

Davis said Penn State had created a special team for move-in involving transportation, university police and housing.

"We've been preparing for this for some time," Davis said.

The team attempted to work out parking locations and traffic movement throughout the campus, she said.

To encourage faculty and staff members to find an alternate route to campus, the Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) provided free transportation to those employed by the university, Davis said.

Lynn DuBois, associate director of housing, said housing also played an integral role in planning for the recent move-in.

"We tried to spread the check-in process throughout a couple more days," DuBois said.

Housing invited out-of-state freshmen and their roommates to move in on Wednesday, the day prior to the initial freshman move-in date, DuBois said.

"We expected more to arrive on Wednesday," she said, "but it did help."

Paul Kamen brought his daughter early due to the fact they live in New York.

"Everyone around here couldn't have helped more," Kamen said. "It was more hectic in the late afternoon after we left, but I don't have any complaints about the move-in."

DuBois said they also allowed students who were trying out for the Penn State Blue Band, or had flights that could not be changed, to move in early.

Also allowed to move in on Wednesday were freshman Schreyer Honors scholars, whose mentor activities started the same day, she said.

Due to the football game, housing alerted students prior to move-in that they were not permitted to move in on Saturday.

But DuBois added that no one would have been turned away. She said there are extenuating circumstances that may limit students to the day they are able to arrive.

As of Thursday, DuBois had not received any complaints about not being able to move in on Saturday.

Harry Max (sophomore-accounting) decided to return to Penn State on Thursday because he felt the weekend would be a lot more hectic.

"Thursday felt like Saturday was last year, which was very surprising," he said.

Tabitha Benner (junior-crime, law and justice) said more parents were trying to move in and out faster in order to leave before the congestion caused by football traffic.

Benner, also a Penn State Police Services auxiliary officer, said they were not given any different preparations compared to last year's move-in.

Davis said a major problem that CATA encountered was trying to keep buses on schedule.

"Because of the congestion, we weren't able to predict whether or not buses would be at their stops on time," she said.

DuBois thought it was possible housing did not get the word out about move-in soon enough.

"In the future, we are going to try and get the info out in advance about check-in dates and times so parents and students can make the reservations they need," she said.

Katy Lindenmuth (junior-journalism) worked at several commons desks during move-in this year and last year and said this year was more hectic.

"I would suggest not to schedule move-in so close to a football weekend," she said. "[The weekend of Aug. 23] may have been easier."

But the university did not make move-in the weekend before the game because of the resident assistant schedule, DuBois said.

"RAs need a few days to get everything situated before students start to move in," she added.

DuBois said the university was also concerned with students moving in a whole week before classes start and trying to provide enough activities to keep them busy.

"Everyone worked a lot of hard hours to make move in as smooth as possible," Davis said. "This is what we expected and everyone handled it quite well."