Housing at IU

IU is one of my top schools and will probably end up there so I am wondering how the whole hosing application works- is there a rush to apply, do I need to confirm a roommate before sending in my application, what are the different dorm/ dorm options for freshman, and so on.

@mng123 i have a daughter at IU and my son is going next year. Housing sign ups won’t open up until February. You will want to sign up quickly once it opens. You cannot choose a dorm, but can rank order the neighborhood you want to live in. If you go to the RPS website there is a description of all the neighborhoods and dorms in each.

One way you can sort of select your dorm is if you want to be a part of an LLC. My D is in Inspire, LLC and that is in Spruce which also happened to be the dorm she was wanting to be in. She did find a roomate via the Schools App and then when they signed up, they had to make sure they ranked everything the same as far as priority order. You can go random if you would like, we know a few people who did.

My D is in the Southeast neighborhood and really likes it as it is close to all her main classes and right across the street from Forest which has one of the better food courts. She hasn’t had any issues using the bus to get to the Football, Basketball and Soccer games and she goes to the rec center quite a bit as well. She doesn’t have a car on campus and doesn’t seem to miss not having one.

Some dorms are certainly nicer than others but you also pay more for those. Spruce is considered enhanced so we pay more for her room than if she was in one of the other dorms. The RPS website has pretty good descriptions of the arrangements. The only issue we have is with the meal plan. My D is not a big eater and she barley made a dent in her meal plan this semester and we bought the smallest one an incoming freshman could have. Told her she needs to start treating some of her friends to lunch or dinner to spend some of that down since some of them were running out at the end of the semester.

IU is one of my top schools, yet I am going to have to wait until April to make a decision, as that is when other schools decisions come out. Since it will be well past February, does that mean that I will have no chance of getting a good dorm if I do decide to attend IU?

@MKR2365 if you are ok with possibly losing $100, you could put your deposit down at IU so you can register for housing in February. You won’t get it back if you decide not to go there, but you definitely would have a better chance of getting the neighborhood you want.

@MKR2365 You can’t even choose individual dorms, only neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has several dorms in it. No matter which neighborhood you end up in, you could get a “good” dorm. Good all depends on what factors you value anyway, and is different for everyone.

@iubaccounting @Larkin90 Thank you for the great advice and information!

My daughter is in Wells Quad (southwest). She is the first group in after the 15M renovation. Two buildings in that quad currently house students: Goodbody Hall, has the food court and Women in Stem LLC, and Memorial Hall - Stem LLC. The buildings are beautiful - some of the most iconic architecture on campus. Its too quiet so she usually heads to Forest where several of her friends are. Forest had to move all students from one building to the newly renovated tower next door over Christmas break. Work on the other tower will begin soon and I don’t know the completion date. Lots of music students in Forest as it is close to Jacobs. They will be breaking ground on a new residence tower in the Northwest neighborhood (nearest the stadium). I would imagine its a 2 year project. Wells quad is great for science students as the academic buildings are right there.
If you have a roommate selected, in order to be paired together, your selections and rankings have to match exactly. My daughter and her desired roommate had one mismatch Women in stem vs stem LLC and they weren’t paired. They were literally on the same floor 4 rooms apart. It took quite a while and multiple emails and calls to resolve it.

I have been trying to find the IU school app to find a roommate. RPS told me to look at facebook IU roommate finder but i didn’t find it. pls lmk how to find it. tia

I see someone said that you can post $100 deposit for housing. Do you have to enroll/accept first? Or is there a separate housing enrollment you can do before deciding if you want to go to IU?

@A1A1A1 you first pay an intent to enroll deposit. And after that you can also sign up for housing, which requires an additional deposit

Thank you @Larkin90 Does “intent to enroll” equate to a binding commitment?

@A1A1A1 I know for sure you can make a housing deposit without entering into a binding agreement to attend IU. Not exactly sure whether “intent to enroll deposit” is binding, though.

@A1A1A1 no I don’t think it is binding