<p>In the mail I got information regarding residence halls, and on an orange sticker on the contract it said "contracts due Feb. 1st, late contracts will not be accepted".</p>
<p>Did anyone else get this? You're telling me that I have to make my decision on Madison BEFORE I get all of my applications returned and potentially before I hear back from FAFSA?</p>
<p>That's just ridiculous and it probably eliminates Madison from the equation.
I'm not getting an apartment in Madison--that's out of the question.</p>
<p>The contract is for committing to living in UW on campus housing. If you decide not to attend UW and notify both the school and the housing department by the May 1, 2011 acceptance deadline, you get your $50 housing deposit refunded. You have till 2/1/11 to decide if you want to live in the UW dorms.</p>
<p>Did you actually read the information? Might be a good practice to learn before running to the keyboard. They send that stuff out for a reason and so did many other organizations you will deal with in the future. Read the stuff. Credit card offers–read it. Job offer-read it. Mortgage offer–read it. The USA would be much better off today if people actually read the stuff they were given before signing. End of lecture. Good luck.</p>
<p>IF you attend UW you are committed to Res Halls if you sign/submit the contract by the due date. IF you do not attend follow the above to get your deposit back. Not doing the contract by the due date means you can’t get into Res Halls.</p>
<p>By requiring admitted students to sign a housing contract by an earlier date Res Halls knows how many contracts they can offer to those who are accepted later. This is important to those who may want a dorm room but don’t get accepted until March or later.</p>
<p>You have more than a month to consider your options. Plenty of time to choose to be in or not in Res Halls if you attend UW. A note to all students- read the fine print of any housing contract- private dorms and private apartments usually will not let you out of the rent for the year even if you do not choose to go to UW, whereas Res Halls will if you give proper notice.</p>
<p>How tight is the Res Hall and what are options, if not in Res Hall? Living outside of the campus? Is that an option for in-coming freshman? What are the pros and cons?</p>
<p>You can live off-campus as a freshman but I wouldn’t recommend it. It would be hard to meet people if you lived in an off-campus house or apartment. There are some private dorms, but they are more expensive and are mostly filled with out-of-state students, which may or may not be a good thing depending on what you are looking for. They have some apartments which are more for freshmen and have RA’s, such as Lucky 101 and Regent. I would recommend the public dorms, however. You can meet many more people and the location is better, and the food plan is better. I know the contract makes it look like you have to commit early, but you can easily get out of the contract if you decide not to attend UW.</p>
<p>Mine would be one of the residential colleges that has a topic of interest. After that Liz Waters. After that any Lakeshore dorm unless you really want to be closer to downtown. Then Smith, Ogg for more downtown access.
Of the private dorms-Lucky.</p>
<p>The right dorm fit depends on what you like, not what we like. Read the info on all the links of the Res Halls site and the past year of CC posts for UW. Then you can decide what is right for you. All dorms have pros and cons, you pick your priorities.</p>
<p>I called UW to ask about the enrollment and housing deposits. </p>
<p>My main question is whether the $100 non-refundable enrollment deposit (which is due May 2) needs to be paid before being able to submit the $50 refundable housing contract pre-payment (which is due Feb. 1). I spoke with a girl in admissions who said the enrollment deposit had to be paid first. Then I called housing and the woman said the enrollment did not need to be paid prior to submitting the housing contract. It would be nice to hear from others who have been through this. </p>
<p>My D is going to visit UW and another school once more before deciding. She may not get both visits completed until the end of January. If all goes well we can still postmark housing contract by Feb. 1, but if we have to pay the enrollment deposit first that may get tricky.</p>
<p>I’m almost totally sure that you don’t have to pay the enrollment deposit before your housing deposit. That would mean that you would have to essentially commit to UW when you got your housing contract, which for some is extremely early. The $50 is basically just a placeholder for the dorms, since there is such a high demand. I don’t know why admissions would have told you otherwise. I know I didn’t pay my enrollment deposit until after my housing deposit, if that helps, and all worked out for me. :)</p>
<p>Due date of May 2nd means you don’t need to pay that $100 deposit until spring. Seems clear that the other deposit would come first. The $50 deposit is required with your signed contract and refundable if you meet the return requirements (not attending UW- informing UW in writing and informing Res Halls itself in writing by May 1st). The money paid by spring will be applied to the final housing payment (of 4- 2 per semester).</p>
<p>Needing to pay some money makes a decision real and easier to be sure you want it. Just sending in a contract may yield more not reading of the fine print and not realizing the contrct is binding if you attend UW.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. While I was a little surprised by Wis75’s comments, I am happy to say that usually the tone of the CC blog for UW is usually very supportive (some schools’ aren’t as respectful). In defense of my question, I will tell you that two other school’s we are looking at have a May 1 deadline for the enrollment deposit, but that deposit has to be paid prior to moving forward on the housing contract. We did read through the UW contract and the website info on housing. By reading that, one could assume that you don’t have to pay the enrollment deposit first since it doesn’t tell you to do that. In my opinion, this isn’t a time to make assumptions, given that some schools do require the enrollment deposit first. When I called and got two different answers that didn’t didn’t help either. Since I educated myself on the matter and still had a question, I don’t feel bad about asking for some feedback.</p>
<p>wis and barron need to stop being so cold and pretentious. People are confused and excited about this, and it’s natural they’ll forget and overlook things – stop being so cynical.</p>
<p>Again…use the search engine by keyword, read the past CC posts, and beyond that virtually ANYTHING you need to know is there on the university website, so learn to navigate it. Wis75 & Barrons have helped incoming freshmen at UW-Madison find their way countless times. It ain’t cynicism–they just don’t care to repeat the same thing sixteen times.</p>
<p>Does anyone know whether or not theres a way out of the housing contract if you decide to go to the university but want to live somewhere else? i didnt realize the deposit meant it was binding and since visiting i decided that i want to live somewhere else…is there a way to get out of the contract?</p>
<p>My understanding is that there is usually a waiting list of people to get into UW-Housing. If you work diligently through the process, you might be able to get released. Probably the best thing to do is call the housing office and make your request and follow-up regularly. Make sure you read everything before you sign! The housing process at UW is a little confusing but the forms are pretty clear as long as you take the time to read them.</p>