DD thought she had a good roommate choice for moving off-campus, but the other young lady has struggled with the transition to the Bloomington campus and has just decided to attend school in her hometown next year. We are left with rapidly closing windows for both on-campus and off-campus offerings.
The RPS office has stated they’ve frozen their systems until spring semester, while they make the assignments from the applications that were made during the fall. Not sure what will be available when they open back up. The best answer I could get was “dorms that aren’t open to freshmen.” Any recommendations for good dorms in the Northwest or Central neighborhoods for a sophomore who’s tired of the communal bath and the triple suite?
The off-campus apartment gig is a complete unknown to us. What are some tips for narrowing down the options, assuming there are many options left? Any complexes or areas to avoid?
Experienced housing parent here… There are lots of options in B-town but ultimately it depends on many factors:
how comfortable is your student living in a larger (4 bed 2-4 bath) place with strangers
how demanding is the courseload
car?
parental visit frequency
parental Berlin air drops for food
Our older girl did dorm for a year, by January she had put in an off-campus deposit. But her school had great housing stock nearby off campus. Did three years of that. Kinda hated it, because of the random roomies, They started off as 4 girls in the same major / social group but that did not last long. We were driving distance and did food drops every month. Worked phenomenally well. We bought her a car tho. But her major was such that dorms are impossible due to crazy hours (architecture). Now she’s 3 states away in her own apartment and car, and a monster cat. Happy
Our younger is at IU in an LLC. She wanted to stay on campus and yet have her own space. She could live on a nice dorm (Forest, Wilkie, etc) but she prefers her own place. So she got a school apartment (studio). This enables the parental food drops and allows her to live independently. She’ll keep a basic meal plan but mostly survive on parental food drops and local shopping.
If I had my choice for dorm it would be Forest (DD stayed there a bit) or Wilkie. Singles are tough to score. If money is no object Cedar or Union St are excellent.
Off campus… I did look briefly but did not get warm fuzzy feelings. Utilities are a big issue, distance, furniture… parking… You can find places but how good?
A lot really depends on your student. DD1 requires quiet. DD2 can study with little trouble from outside noise.
