<p>Any opinions?</p>
<p>I went for a suite-style dorm because I wanted to be closer to central campus and because I wanted a meal plan for another year. Depends on what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>OP, you go to Madison right? I really advise you to get an apartment. It is so much more comfortable and private…if you value a quiet study apartment, you can find something quiet and it’s way better than the small dorms, or if you like to party you can live somewhere where lots of people party and you can party way more easily. Whatever you like to do, you can do more of it. Plus next year the dorms will be filled with freshmen, which you may not think will annoy you but come next year you’ll be really annoyed with them.</p>
<p>Apartments are almost always cheaper as well…I live in an apartment building which is $700/month and it costs almost exactly the same as a dorm, and it’s extremely nice. Most apartments are much cheaper than mine.</p>
<p>Yea I do… I’m kind of teeter tottering between a single dorm room and a studio/efficiency apartment. The price for the efficiency I like is a little bit more than the room 100. I heard they have a lot of new stuff coming to the dorms like the new event centers and maybe better restaurants next year so that’s why I’m not sure which to go for…</p>
<p>Personally I really want to get an apartment next year because I don’t really care for being on campus 24/7. It’ll be nice to have somewhere to get away to, though not too far so I can still roll outta bed in the morning. :D</p>
<p>Another reason you may go to a private property apartment is because most universities do not recognize student’s rights to have weapons in their dwellings, even for individuals 21 and over who have the training, background check, and state license to carry concealed firearms.</p>
<p>Just last week there was an armed robbery on campus, a 17 year old robbed a student at gunpoint. The student was almost killed in cold blood. Had that same illegal robber who was carrying weapons illegally tried to rob ME a few blocks from campus on my private property/apartment complex parking lot they would have said hello to my 357 Magnum or 40 S.W. </p>
<p>What is more ridiculous is that campus police recommend giving into the demands of the felons. What if a kid holds a girl at gunpoint and tells her to get into the car? Thanks to draconian gun laws that prevent lawful citizens from carrying on campuses, she would get raped, or worse. </p>
<p>On the campuses where concealed carry is allowed, such as at 30 campuses in Utah, at Colorado State University, and at Blue Ridge Community College in VA there hasn’t been a single incident of gun violence.</p>
<p>What is worse than allowing an execution-style massacre to continue uncontested? How could any action with the potential to stop or slow a deranged killer intent on slaughtering victim after victim be considered worse than allowing that killer to continue undeterred?</p>
<p>^Lol, there’s currently a huge controversy about allowing concealed carry at my school (and the OP’s school, we go to the same school). The state of Wisconsin just passed a concealed-carry law. It’s a HUGE debate, something most outspoken people seem to be really opposed to in general. I’m big on gun control (though I don’t want to debate why) so I would prefer that weapons were not allowed on campus. </p>
<p>Plus, if you live in an apartment over a dorm specifically so you can have a weapon…that’s a little messed up IMO. I don’t think that’s going to be a factor in OP’s decision, lol.</p>
<p>I stick by my recommendation of an apartment, especially if you go to Madison, OP. Almost all sophomores do move off-campus. One of my best friends stayed in the dorms, got a single room, and she really wishes she got an apartment, the freshmen are just obnoxious anywhere you go (no offense to freshmen, they can’t help it, and we were the same way last year). There may be nicer facilities opening, but that just means costs will go up, and it is a lot cheaper to live in an apartment. Plus the sense of freedom you get is soooo much better than all the rules of the dorms.</p>
<p>Dorm. Reason? 2 words. Subsidized food.</p>
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<p>Usually campus food is more expensive. The food on my campus is 3x as much as at the grocery store, even though it’s in a city and there actually are grocery stores a stone’s throw away from the dorm convenience stores. I can’t imagine how inflated prices must be at a campus where it’s actually more convenient to shop on campus. I actually think there was a thread about this a couple of weeks ago.</p>
<p>I’m supposed to have guaranteed housing, but with the way USC works, I’m not holding my breath.</p>
<p>If I can get housing on campus, me and my friend plan on living in apartment style dorms. We’ll put down the Horseshoe apartment buildings as our first choice (great location, 2 single rooms+kitchen+living room+bathroom) a Quad as our fourth choice and the current building we’re in right now as our fifth choice. The Horseshoe used to be reserved basically just for honors college students, but now most HC students prefer living in the new Honors Dorms and then move off campus junior/senior year.</p>
<p>I don’t want to have to worry about being able to pay the rent on top of having to worry about how to get to school each day on top of having to worry about when I’m going to buy groceries and how much I’m going to spend on groceries and how I’m going to get to the store. I may or may not (and likely will not) have a car next year and almost no off-campus housing is within a decent walking distance of campus. A lot of apartments have shuttles, but what if something happens? Then I’m kind of screwed.</p>
<p>I think each school is different. I looked and I wouldn’t save any money by living off of campus and it would just make my life more difficult, so I’m planning on living on campus.</p>
<p>Living off-campus is pretty sweet. No RAs, endless alcohol, clean bathrooms, it’s quite nice.</p>
<p>e: And since we live in a single-family home we can be a fair bit louder than in an apartment unit.</p>
<p>It really depends on your situation. I loved living on campus (and I did the first two years) because all of my friends were in the same dorm and so were a good chunk of my classes (residential college). However, I hated being far away from my car. The unlimited food is something I miss in retrospect (I hate cooking), but the price made it impossible for me to live on campus. </p>
<p>Be honest with yourself. Will you get out of bed every morning to go to class? It is much harder than you’d think to get up and go when you could easily skip (especially if campus parking sucks like mine does). Also, are you the kind of person who likes to cook and such? I know people who moved off because they thought it would be cheaper but ended up eating out all the time because they didn’t want to cook, thus making it cost about the same. </p>
<p>Also, talk to friends around campus who have moved off. They’re probably going to give you the best advice :).</p>
<p>economically living off campus could be way cheaper, more private, and you’ll have a kitchen 
something i am SO looking forward to when i finish off this year at the dorms. </p>
<p>however, i will miss the convenient location to campus/food situation and occasional freebies. but i think it’ll be nice to have your own space too.</p>
<p>I will admit that I do really miss having food prepared and available for me. You don’t realize how nice that is until you don’t have it anymore, no matter how crappy the food in the dining halls is.</p>
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<p>I guess it just depends on your school. All the dining halls at my college have really weird hours, except for one that’s on the other side of campus from me. It would be so much more convenient to just have a stove so I could make something instead of having to try to fit my meal schedule around dining hall schedules.</p>