Current NCSU students and parents of students: I understand that on-campus housing for sophomore year and beyond is first-come, first serve and seniors have priority. Does that match your understanding? Also, we will have some time during our next visit to drive around the areas where students live off campus. Can you share the names of neighborhoods, streets or apartment complexes? I did find a website collegestudentapartments.com that shows listings close to the university. Is this a good resource? Anyone willing to comment upon their experience finding housing via this or another resource? Thanks!
Correction: It looks like there is a new housing policy this spring that flips priority to make things better for sophomores. Any comments from those impacted?
Moderator could this please be moved to colleges and Universities under North Carolina State?
I thought the priority for housing was Freshman with the new mandatory policy they live on campus. We’ve already made plans last Fall as a Junior to live off campus because we had no faith that we could get on campus housing as a Junior. We wanted best choice for off campus and needed to move quick. LOVE NCSU…HATE LACK OF HOUSING ON CAMPUS. But I hear all NC Universities have the same problem.
Join the NCSU Parents page on FB. They’ll have lots of advice for you. My S18 is planning on staying on campus and has applied to a Village.
my impression (kid lived on campus sophomore year) is that it’s not that hard to live on campus if one wants to. However, most kids want to get off campus after their first two years from what I’ve seen. There are lots of options not to far that use shuttle vans from the apartment villages to the campus. There are also private places basically on campus like Valentine commons and University towers that don’t care what year the student is, so there’s definitely campus adjacent dorm like buildings closer than wolf ridge wolf village to north/central campus.
My son will be living on campus his sophomore year (and possibly beyond, if he chooses to continue as an Honors Fellow)- This is for non-Engineering students, but living in Valentine Commons, location-wise, is no different from living in Bragaw, Lee, or Sullivan. Several friends of his will be in VC as sophomores and beyond. I believe the applications closed for that in December, though.
Thank you to all! We are trying to estimate housing costs for 4 year COA purposes.
The housing policies have shifted around a little bit, and the requirement for freshman to live on campus has made things a little tight. But I don’t know anyone forced off campus, and I’m on my third kid at State.
FWIW, my son’s housing for each of their years -
S1 - campus (village), campus (village), centennial, off-campus
S2 - campus, campus, campus, campus
S3 - campus, ??
Edited to add -
if that is your primary concern, using the NCSU COA numbers will be as close as anything. when S1 moved off campus, it stayed pretty flat, but the types of expenses shifted a bit. Such as rent went down, but transportation went up.
This is just based on the rent at VC, but university housing is cheaper.
Our D is a sophomore and she lives with 3 of her roommates from her Freshman year at Sullivan. They live at Valentine Commons and just signed to stay there again for their Junior year. Can’t beat the location if you move off campus and they like that they each have their own bathroom! The cost after reducing our D’s meal plan was the same cost has her Freshman year.
Yes. your kids can live off campus with shuttle bus villages or walking distance (Valentine etc.) for less than or no more than living on campus
Any new comments now that another wave of students have started selecting housing for the next year?
Not for next year, but following up on last years process. S3 ended up being “forced” to move off campus. He and 3 others tried to get an apartment on campus, ideally Wolf Ridge. But they could not find an apartment with 4 available rooms. They were especially frustrated at the number of apartments that only 1 person had signed up for.
It’s worked out. They ended up in a bit of a dump. But it’s a clean, safe dump in a convenient location.
1 Like
@decidesomehow sounds like the apartment management was not doing a good job of matching up all those that had no one to sign up with. Isn’t that part of the point of just having a lease for your own room? Or, do those complexes not work that way?
@Cheeringsection The campus apartments did not do a good job (or any job) of matching up singles, that’s for sure.
Wolf Ridge and Wolf Village work just like the dorm room. For example, an individual choose room 101 in Tucker, leaving a spot for another person to be the roommate. Which makes some sense. In the apartments, an individual can choose apartment 101, bedroom A, leaving the other 3 bedrooms open for anyone. Last spring, the system was not pulling the singles together into one apartment, and the effect was literally no empty apartments.
For off campus apartments, often with individual leases, some of the property management companies were not interested in singles. They wanted enough folks at one time to fill the apartment. Granted, this was when they were looking at properties in spring 2019 to move in for fall 2019. So the management companies could be a little picky.
I’m curious what the occupancy rate is for Wolf Ridge and Village. If they filled up, I can see why the campus housing folks don’t work to match up singles and doubles.
1 Like