<p>Hi,</p>
<p>My brother will be attending IUB this fall. On behalf of him, I'm asking which banks are best and which cell phone planes are best?</p>
<p>I'm also going with him tomorrow to the orientation, but from what my friends and family have told me its better to ask the students than faculty.</p>
<p>Any recommendations or thoughts?</p>
<p>re: phone service, check out this recent thread:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/indiana-university-bloomington/516724-best-phone-carrier-iu.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/indiana-university-bloomington/516724-best-phone-carrier-iu.html</a></p>
<p>re: banking, my son has an account with Chase which has branches here at home and at IU. There are Chase ATMs at the Union and on Tenth Street (not far from Teter). I also saw a branch on Third Street down closer to the mall.</p>
<p>We just finished orientation and we opened a checking account/debt card at the IU Credit Union. They have ATM's on campus at the Union and the Wells library for sure, checking is free with no min balance.</p>
<p>Chase is convenient for banks, lots of ATMs. I kind of wished I joined the IU Credit Union, because of the better CC rates, more benefits, but we had to have something we could access from other locations than Bloomington.</p>
<p>I'm not a student, so our needs are a bit different when it comes to banking, but Chase Banks in Bloomington are horrible. IU Credit Union is fine. Personally we like Monroe Bank. For students they have a location on Kirkwood and near the mall. ATM's in other spots.</p>
<p>The key thing for us in making our banking decision was finding a bank that had branches at both home and school. That narrows down the possibilities quite a bit. It was important to us that we be able to make deposits during the school year from home, while son is away, in case of an emergency. Chase fit that bill for us. Son had no problem this year with them and their online banking is very convenient.</p>
<p>My son also uses Chase. He got a credit card with them, as well as checking. I'm not sure why he chose Chase, but he has been happy with it. He likes being able to bank online and has had no problems. He still has an account with our credit union at home, so that we can easily transfer money to him from our accounts, and he can access it through an ATM or write a check, but he needed one where he could deposit money, as well.</p>
<p>We also just returned from orientation and opened an account at the IU credit union. The cool thing is that even though we live in Seattle, they have a cooperative arrangement with a local credit union so that I can make deposits to my sons account as needed. The people there were very nice and printed out a list of "connected credit unions" based on our zipcode. By opening this account, my son can access the ATM's around town without incurring fees.</p>