I recently finished paying and submitting the information needed for when accepting the offer. I noticed there wasn’t an option anywhere to choose dorming options. Am I missing something?
Penn State Altoona has limited on-campus housing. Many students, including freshmen, need to choose off-campus housing. It may very well be that the dorms are now full for next year. You will need to get in touch with the housing office to find out if anything is available on campus. If not, there are many choices of off-campus housing.
Log into eliving.psu.edu and see if there is housing available. You can select your housing preference there if it is available. If not, don’t worry at all. There are apartment complexes all around the campus and a lot of students live off campus. My son is at altoona and he lives in Spruce.
I went to the website and am now able to choose which hall and type of dorm. Which hall would be the best?
and why?
So Oak and Maple are the typical old style dorms. One bathroom in the hall, two people per room. No AC. But they are also the cheapest and many students like them because people keep their doors open and they meet a lot of people.
Spruce is the next one up in cost and is a suite style living with two people per room, two rooms per suite and one bathroom shared in the suite among all 4 people. AC is in the room. My son lived there this year and he loved it.
Cedar is the most expensive an is also a suite style but with a different layout. Also has AC. Cedar is the furthest from anything but Altoona is not that big so it doesn’t really matter.
At this point, put your preferences in order and if there is room in them, they will put you there. The likelihood is that you will get put in Oak or Maple because that is where most freshman live. They only keep a handful of rooms in Spruce and Cedar for freshmen and those are usually ‘taken’ by now. (They assign housing in the order people made their housing deposits and a lot of people deposited back in October and November). But it doesn’t hurt to try if you want a suite! Also, if you know someone who deposited early and asked for a suite and you want to live with them, the dorm room is assigned by the first roommate to deposit. But you’d have to choose them in the preferences and they’d have to choose you as well.