<p>IS it true that you are not guaranteed housing for four years?</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>You'll most likely have to live off campus where it's cheaper.</p>
<p>you are garunteed housing frosh year</p>
<p>In my experience, living off campus is more expensive, at least if you want to be somewhat close to campus.</p>
<p>Anyone know how many students live off-campus (each year), and what the average expense is? maybe percentages or something?</p>
<p>Does Cornell guarantee housing based on year? i.e. Do sophomores get dibs over seniors? Since seniors would be more independent and expected to be able/learn to rent an apartment?</p>
<p>What? I'm really worried now.. I hope Cornell guarantees housing for international students at least T-T..</p>
<p>sophmores have garaunteed housing, but juniors and seniors have first dibs. basically, the lottery goes 1000-1999 for seniors, 2000-2999 for juniors, and 3000+ for sophmores. Everyone who signs up on time for the lottery gets a number. If you are a rising senior, you get to go about 2 days before the rising sophmores, and 1 day before the rising juniors. They have a set number of beds for the seniors and juniors. Once that number is met, they make all the rest of the seniors and juniors wait until AFTER the sophmores get a turn since they have garaunteed housing. So, the worst bunch would be the rising juniors because they would have to wait until after the seniors pick their beds (and for upperclassmen beds, they make no distinction between juniors and seniors...just that they can only fill say 700 beds because the rest are reserved for sophmores). However, if you are a sophmore and you have a bad number your options are to either block with someone who has a good number (better than 3500) or most likely room with some unknown person because by then usually all the singles are sold, and many of not all the doubles have either been filled or half-filled. I think when I was helping this past lottery, for the carl becker house (the second house system) we sold out singles by 11am (the lottery for sophmore started at 9am) and any empty doubles by 12pm. I remember leaving at 2 (by that time we were sold out of beds by 1) and pitying the sophmores who stood in line for a chance at a room in one of the class halls that are either closest to the construction, or might soon be knocked down...i hope that wasn't too confusing. but, if you want to live off-campus, to get a good deal, you should find and sign your lease in early fall (by october usually for ct plaza for example)</p>
<p>eek..I'm a little confused... So what you're saying, quyhn, is that sophomores get guaranteed housing, but the worst spots? How do the lottery numbers work? Is it random or alphabetical? (I've grown to hate alphabeticallity when it comes to these things, since my last name starts with a Z :P)</p>
<p>And for the off-campus thing, do you mean October, almost a year before you're going to live in the place? So for a freshman who is looking to live off-campus in their sophomroe year, you'd want to do the lease like, 2 months after starting freshman year??</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help, btw. :)</p>
<p>it is a randomly assigned number, and yes to get a really good place, ppl have already signed a lease usually the first half of fall semester</p>
<p>Wow that is REALLY early.. do a lot of people live off-campus? it probably isn't worthwhile for rising sophomores though, is it? I mean, do you really know who you want to live with the next year in October, as a freshman?</p>
<p>Some people do and some don't. Depends on how quickly you make friends. A significant number of sophomores live off-campus.</p>
<p>And the housing lottery is random. I was unfortunate enough to get a number in the 4000's (I was among the last 60 people to pick).</p>
<p>There are a lot of off-campus options. I live in a house just above collegetown that is actually closer to most of my classes (engineering quad) than most dorms. I have a single room out of nine, and we share two kitchens and four bathrooms. My total rent is about $450/month (12 month lease), which is just about the same cost of a dorm for two semesters. I can also sublet my room in the summer or when I take a semester off for co-op, so I can make back a good chunk of money.</p>
<p>A lot of upperclassmen live off campus. I'm a sophomore, so I made the switch pretty early. I don't know the numbers (they are available somewhere), but I would guess that more than half of juniors and seniors live off campus. I didn't think that I would move out of the dorms so quickly, but living in a house gave me the ability to live with a bunch of my close friends. I still eat at the dining halls quite a bit, although C-Town does have some good food.</p>
<p>for me, what turned me off from off-campus housing was 1. the housekeeping, i never have to worry about cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming the carpet outside my room, what chores for who. and secondly, after visiting a couple of friends who live off-campus (these are 6-7 ppl apts) I realized just how much toilet papers are always short, and the bathrooms are often disgusting!! so, my friends and I blocked together (even though I had a relatively good lottery number in the mid 3100s, my friend had 3050 last year, and we didn't know much about housing, but we knew we wanted singles, we went to the shortest line, luckily that was the Alice cook house, and choose the biggest room. my 3050 friend's only requirement was to have a fireplace because my then senior friend who was an RA had a fireplace). Now, I am happy to say I am going to be living in her old room! :-D excited. i'm just extraordinarily lucky with lottery, since because I live in the ACH, we had our own internal lottery before the main one, and so we literally had our pick of where to live. I know 2 friends this year who chose a 3 room double...the best view on campus too...and they had a "bad" number according to our internal lottery because regardless, most people still prefer singles. (the three room double had a large "living room" but the individual rooms could only fit a bed...basically a slightly smaller quad but it's a double!)</p>