As students conquer their last finals and dorms begin to empty, heat and humidity sets in and lets people know that it’s summertime in the city.

For more than 3,000 students from GW and other schools, Foggy Bottom will remain their home for the next four steamy summer months; internships, employment at the University and summer classes are among the top reasons to stay. Eight hundred of those summer District dwellers will be inhabiting the University’s many residence halls.

“It isn’t as packed,” rising senior Melissa Gapud said. An international business major on a pre-med track, Gapud will be spending her second summer in D.C.

“The classes are smaller, more laid back and personal,” she said. “It’s a better atmosphere to take classes that you either want to focus on or need to pay more attention to.”

GW will offer 1,268 course sections between the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses during two summer sessions. This is almost a 50 percent increase over the number of sections offered during the summer of 2004.

Elizabeth Amundsen, the University Registrar, said because final numbers have not been complied for the entire summer, it is too early to tell if more or less students are enrolled in classes this summer compared to previous years.

Not all students that stay for the summer are enrolled in classes, however. Rising junior Julia Allman, who has spent the past semester working part-time for a local public relations company, was asked to work for the summer full-time, with a raise.

“I knew I had to take the job and figure out how to find housing later,” said Allman, who eventually found residence in Ivory Tower for the summer.

Originally, Allman did not expect to live on campus for the summer, but when she could not secure a roommate and apartment prices in Foggy Bottom soared out of her range, GW housing became a viable option.

Allman had to fill out the summer housing form and submit a down payment for the 10-week summer housing block. She was able to secure the room she would have moved into in the fall, because it was not being used by Colonial Cabinet staff or another student.

She said that while dealing with the busy Community Living and Learning Center office was a hassle, campus housing is a convenient and relatively inexpensive way to stay in the District over the summer.

For approximately $2,500, the room is available for the summer as well as grace periods between the end of the spring semester and beginning of the fall semester.

In addition to the approximately 800 GW students that stay for the summer, about 3,000 interns from other schools stay in GW housing. The school also accommodates just more than 12,000 conference attendees, said Seth Weinshel, director of campus housing.

Over the next few months, the University will pull in about $7 million in revenue from occupants, money that will go toward the operating costs of the residence halls for the entire fiscal year, said Johnnie Osborne, chief financial officer for Student and Academic Support Services.

“I wouldn’t call it a profit, more of just revenue put toward paying the operating costs,” Osborne said, adding that summer housing makes up 14 percent of the total housing revenue for the year.

-Brandon Butler contributed to this report.