It seems that at most colleges students opt for off campus housing after sophomore year. I was hoping for two years of on-campus housing at VT for my S. However, if most move off because housing is limited I understand. So, does anyone have info on preferred housing? Nice areas/complexes? Convenience? Transportation to and from campus? Lease/space availability? Also, safety and community tolerance? I keep hearing that the community is very supportive of the students and the U life within their community but this has come from administration. I would like to hear opinions from other parents or students? We are OOS with no knowledge whatsoever of the community.
There are a couple ways to stay on campus sophomore year.
Some/all LLC’s (living learning communities) are 2 year commitments. I can’t give you any 1st or 2nd hand info on those. There is an engineering LLC - think Galileo for guys, Hypathia for females but I may have that wrong. Check the VT website and see if anything looks good
Another option is to pledge a fraternity in the fall that has onsite housing. Typically that would put them in the fraternity/sorority dorms soph year, assuming the fraternity need brothers to fill the space (something they would know early in pledging). This is true only for frats as sororities only rush spring semester and thus move into the dorm junior year if at all. There’s an area of “Special Purpose Housing” that’s essentially a number of smaller 2 story dorms all together nestled between the backside of the golf course and 460. You will also see it called Oak Lane Community. The dorms can contain a couple fraternities (on different floors on one wing) and a sorority or 2 in the other wing. Think there’s 15-20 dorms there? But again they are small compared to dorms on main part of campus. Parking is right there, buses to campus stop there. My son spent his soph year there and it was ok, rooms are bigger than most of the “regular” dorms and it’s typically 2 rooms with a shared bath in between. No a/c unless that’s changed in the last 2 years.
There are a limited number of dorm rooms available for sophomores and they are distributed via lottery, think that’ done January of spring semester. The # available varies by year, depending on how many freshman they have and other occupancy issues. This year I heard that about 50% of the applicants got a spot, but that can vary.
There’s an abundance of apartments around campus and towards Christianburg. The “good ones” usually fill early. Students start signing leases in October and by the end of fall semester the pickings are getting slim. Variety of 2,3,4 bedroom - less 3 bed than the other options. Most are on a bus line but check that. Big spread in rent - $400-$700+/month so set a budget before your student starts to look. The high end is at The Edge and The Retreat which are pretty much across Prices Fork from the new engineering building. Very convenient, new, and nice - called Club Med by some. Not cheap. The issue for most parents is that students pretty much have to figure out who they want to live with the next year while they’re still in the process of making friends and adjusting. VT is not the only school with this issue. That said, if you want until January to look, there WILL be good options available. But you will need to go after it right after you get back. And there may be an issue finding people to live with who have not committed to live with others. Many complexes will assign single students to open spots in apartments… say you sign for a 4 bed but only have 3 friends and are looking for a 4th. At some point the complex will put someone in there. Surprisingly I hear few horror stories about that but that doesn’t mean all work out. Also individual leases are often used, so you sign just for yourself not the whole apartment.
Lastly there are some houses available. This is often the cheapest option but they are VERY difficult to get. You have to do a lot of legwork very early to find and secure get one. I hear mixed about this approach, there are a lot of variables to consider.
At this point I’d suggest asking to join the Virginia Tech Parents FB group. Very supportive community and you will get a variety of honest answers to just about anything. Loosely moderated (no arguing, putdowns, political discussions) keeps it running pretty smoothly. It’s a closed group as there was some recent stalk’ish behavior from an outsider that made it necessary. I would suggest not getting into which apartment complex is best yet - personally I’d wait until next summer or September. It’s just too early and a lot can change at a complex in a year. But questions about LLC’s and staying on campus pop up pretty often so I’m sure you can get good info there.
Sorry for the book, hope this helps!
Congrats on the decision!
@JustGraduate thanks so much! Very informative, especially the part explaining the leasing starts in October! Yikes, you are right about not sure they will know who they want to live with by then. I was trying to talk to my son about the entrepreneur/innovative living learning community. I think it would be a good thing for him. This may make it sound even more appealing 
I will also look into the parents fb group! Again, thanks a lot!
@xaviermom2017 I see you DID start a housing thread. @JustGraduate wrote an excellent summary. I love real estate so I’ve kept up with prices and locations. I would recommend that you join “VA Tech Parents” group on Face Book. You will get opinions on the various apartment complexes. Many apartment communities seem to be owned by conglomerates that own identical complexes at other big schools. For instance there are “The Edge Apartments” at UCF and several other colleges. One good thing is that many of the larger complexes make a student sign a lease only for his room; not for the whole apartment.
They start having housing events in the fall and many students feel pressured into leases for the following year then. There is another housing fair in February after the on campus housing lottery. Last year there were still apartments being advertised on line in July and August.
My son is in a Living-Learning community. His dorm has A/C and is located very close to two dining halls, the library, and bookstore. They are guaranteed housing on campus all four years and he doesn’t have to endure the lottery. I can see him wanting an apartment after next year though. Check the VA Tech web page on the various communities and have your son apply if they appeal to him.
As far as safety VA Tech seems to be very safe. I noticed on campus that many students don’t bother to lock their bicycles up. I have looked up the crime stats on the campus police website and the stats were a lot lower than most much smaller VA schools. Blacksburg as a whole seems to rank highly in those “great places to raise your kids” articles. All the sprawl stores (Walmart, Target, BB&B) are a couple of miles away in Christiansburg and Blacksburg retains that Main St college town look.
@OspreyCV22 thanks you so much for a great response! We did stop and talk to one of the living-learning communities at Hokie Focus and it seemed quite appealing. I didn’t expect to be trying to gather this information so quickly as honestly, I didn’t expect my S to decide on VT due to distance. Needless to say, I am VERY unfamiliar with Virginia as a whole and definitely have no knowledge as to Blacksburg. All of the comments and threads have been very helpful in making me feel comfortable with his decision.
If S attends VT (hoping he makes his decision soon) he will live in Galileo. I will strongly encourage him to apply to live there for sophomore year as well. Trying to find roommates and apartments in October of freshman year sounds insane.
A student told us that the second year with Galileo is not guaranteed and is by application. I think he has as good a chance as anyone. Seems like a great program and the “maker” lab was very cool.
ETA: The two beach volleyball courts, the basketball court, and the barbecue area behind Lee Hall were all jam packed with students having fun when we walked by during Hokie Focus.
@STEM2017 that’s awesome your S has Galileo as option! I heard it’s fabulous!! My S is not engineering - at least not for now lol. He is going in Explore XT - University Studies and will be working with an advisor to figure out which career choice/major in tech works best for him. He is interested in data security and/or biotech.
As for the news about the kids hanging out that is great to hear because there weren’t many hanging out on Saturday. It may have been just a bit too chilly and/or they had some big thing going on in the quad so that could’ve been a reason too. Thanks for sharing.
Saturday was The Big Event - likely that many were volunteering for that
We arrived to Blacksburg later Saturday afternoon. Most students were wrapping up their Big Event activities. We ate at Mellow Mushroom which was full of students. When we drove back to the hotel, around 9pm, Main Street was full of kids out on the town. Looked like fun
Memories.
@JustGraduate so true! Thanks for reminding me of that because I was wondering why there weren’t more students hanging out in the residential quad areas! Makes sense!
We were there Saturday and Sunday. Sunday was about 15-20 degrees warmer than Saturday and had groups of students playing Quidditch and frisbee, or just sitting on the drillfield on blankets enjoying the beautiful weather. Others were getting photos in their graduation gowns. Two large groups of about 70 girls each, in their matching attire, were getting sorority photos in front of Burruss Hall and a couple others were in hammocks near the dorms.
There was a significant difference in activity on the drillfield between Saturday and Sunday. I’m guessing that was partly due to the Big Event and partly due to a bit more warmth on Sunday.
Saturday night we saw lots of students on Main Street. Sunday afternoon the drillfield was busy and looked very much like the stereotypical college green abuzz with activity.
Most sophomores opt to live off campus. The Edge comes fully furnished and is fairly new. Most of the apartments are within walking distance to the campus and kids do not need to drive.
Thank you @yaychildisdone! I feel a bit lost in all of this and we are 9 hours away so every bit of info helps
there is a facebook page called VA tech parents. in the files there is a document that talks about different apartment complexes near VA tech and rates them as well. Check it out …
I am looking to transfer my lease 8/1/17 to 7/31/18. Located in the Edge complex walking distance to VT. Private bed and bath, free parking, all utilities, fitness center, washer/dryer in unit and AC , , , $785/mo - part of 4 bed/4 bath townhouse