<p>I haven't gotten into UW yet, but if I get accepted off the wait-list then I'm going there for sure, so I wanted to get people's opinions on this.</p>
<p>I know that there's three options for housing - live at home and commute, live in the dorms, or live in an apartment off-campus.</p>
<p>I am NOT living at home and commuting, that's just something I have no intention of doing whatsoever.</p>
<p>Living in the dorms can be anywhere from 1.3x to 2x as expensive as renting an apartment with a roommate. I also haven't heard good things about the dorms at UW. On the other hand, I'm pretty apprehensive about the lack of socializing that comes with living in an apartment freshman year, and missing out on (in my opinion) a huge part of the college experience. </p>
<p>Living in an apartment (I've got a roommate lined up, I'm pretty sure) has the potential to be half as expensive as the dorms (yearly). There's also the upside of having privacy - no RAs or anything like that, which is a blessing and a curse because the social aspect of dorm life is completely gone. There's also the downside of still having a potentially long (up to 5 miles) commute to UW, coupled with hard-to-find parking around UW itself.</p>
<p>I've looked around the Internet just to see what people have said, and it's 100% unanimous that the better option is to dorm for the first 1-2 years and then move out once you've established a regular friend group. However, most of these people also assume that getting an apartment is more expensive than dorming, which is quite the opposite at UW. So I don't know. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>mental, I’m also in the same dilemma. Would love to know what others think. I feel more inclined towards off-campus housing, however. I did a semester at another university and stayed in a dorm. I hated it, because I felt I was being forced to take part in activities I had no interest in whatsoever. I also didn’t like how the drinking culture was so strong, and how people were so cliquish. At the same time, I can see how living in an apartment would pretty much mean you have to try much harder to make friends through other ways, such as being active in student clubs, etc.</p>
<p>I DO know some people who lived in apartments since freshman year and they had no trouble with their social life. That being said, you’d have to branch out more - talk to classmates more, stay on campus doing stuff instead of just going back to the apartment after class.</p>
<p>Dorming makes it “easier” to make friends since everyone’s already lumped together in the same place to live, but living in an apartment isn’t going to make you a loner.</p>
<p>That said, if I had to live in a traditional dorm…I would choose not to. I wouldn’t like the idea of feeling forced into activities. I do live on campus, but they leave those in family housing alone</p>
<p>There are dorms that are arranged in pods and have more privacy but you get the chance to meet new people and your pod has only 7 others I believe. Living on campus is going to be a lot easier I imagine.</p>
<p>I’m wondering about this too, although the priority housing deadline has passed already. I have one person to apartment with, but not sure if dorms would still be worth it.</p>
<p>There are a ton of places with a single room for rent in University Park, north of the campus. If you were there you’d be in the thick of the social scene and you’re paying less than a dorm.</p>