<p>"What's New in Housing?
Even if youre new to Michigan this year, youll have noticed that there are big changes in University Housing part of our ongoing mission to make better, more vibrant communities everywhere on campus. Here are just a few of the latest developments. Be sure to check back to see what else is new or get all the updates by following us on Facebook.</p>
<p>Close
Room Selection Order
With the closure of two buildings next year, the choices for on-campus spaces will be limited for returning students. Input from the Residence Halls Association, residence student staff and the University Housing Student Advisory Board recommends changing the selection order for Sign-Up. The input is supported by experience and research findings that freshmen and sophomores benefit most from the support of on-campus housing. </p>
<p>Accordingly, eligible students who register and participate in Housing Sign-Up will receive a selection appointment time based on the number of complete semesters (terms) they have resided in University Housing:</p>
<p>Housing Sign-Up 2012-13
PRIORITY BRACKETS
Highest Priority 2 or fewer terms
Second Priority 3-4 terms
Third Priority 5-6 terms
Lowest Priority 7 or more terms
Students are randomized within each priority bracket; this means students in the highest priority bracket may not obtain their first or second choice buildings. We encourage you to consider other buildings and room types should your top choices not be available at your selection time.
The student with the lowest priority determines priority for group and roommate assignments."</p>
<p>Splendid. If their goal is to make sure no juniors or seniors come back for housing, they have succeeded. The U of M community takes a big hit. Alexandre, is profanity allowed in these circumstances?</p>
<p>I’m not sure what is wrong with this. It makes complete sense. So you believe that the freshman should have to find off campus housing? When they don’t know anyone or the town yet? Talk about making no valuable candidates even apply to U of M and make the university suck. Nobody would ever want to go to a school where they couldn’t live on campus freshman year. Juniors and Seniors know the town and should know plenty of people by then, not to mention have had more time to make money with a part-time job; the upperclassmen don’t need university housing, so they have the lowest priority.</p>
<p>I don’t mind making sure that freshmen get their spots: housing picks where they live anyway, so they will still get the crappiest housing. I DO take issue with sophomores picking before juniors, and so on and so forth. There is no reason for that.</p>
<p>Yeah, the same argument goes for sophomores. They have had less time to establish themselves socially and with the community, as well as financially, therefore they should have priority access to housing above those that should be able to move off campus, especially considering that juniors and seniors need to be preparing to live in the real world anyways. I’m sure you could always be an RA if you really wanted to live in dorms?</p>
<p>Anyone got a statistic on the amount of juniors that live in dorms? The only one’s I’ve met are RA’s. At that point it’s really time to move out.</p>
<p>This upsets me. The university pays for everything (my tuition and housing). If I were to live off-campus they’d scale back my financial aid, so an apartment is not a desirable option since I’d be paying out of my own pocket then. Now I’m going to be stuck somewhere awful like Bursley. Gonna be a huge downgrade after Stockwell…oh boy…</p>
<p>As for the “sophomores need more time to establish blah blah” bull crap. After freshman year, you will either know Ann Arbor (because you’ve been out and about) or you won’t, and an additional year in a dorm won’t change that.</p>
<p>Eziamm, stop acting condescending and superior. Almost all of my close friends (8+ people) are going to be living in the dorms last year. There are many great reasons to live in the dorms, such as convenience, eating healthy (hard to prepare quality healthy dishes in an apartment when you live further away and have classes, extracurricular, ect*). There is a worse sense of community. Believe it or not, at many colleges the norm is to NOT move off campus. But then again, as a current freshman your class will be direct beneficiaries of this stupid policy, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you would defend it.</p>
<p>*“but you can get a meal plan if you live off campus!”: yeah, and it barely gives any meals. thanks for playing.</p>
<p>@andre10 im sorry but your argument makes no sense whatsoever. so you think sophomores should move off campus and then move back on for their upperclassmen years? I’m sure that you would be ****ed if they told you as a sophomore than juniors and seniors were getting dorms before you. You’re being unreasonably defensive; you should have realized that attending a large state school means that you will have to live off campus as an upperclassman. It’s part of life and the U of M experience, why not get an apartment with some of your 8 friends? Yeah it might be harder to eat or whatnot, but you’ll have to do that in less than 2 years anyways. Dorms are meant for underclassmen; don’t cling to them, there are many positives about off campus living as well.</p>
<p>edit: apparently CC doesnt allow the word pis sed, which is what i used. Their editing makes my diction look excessively flagrant when in reality it is quite harmless.</p>
<p>@yakyu- I’ve never heard of that. U of M gives the same fin aid package whether you’re on campus or off. Do you have some sort of scholarship which <em>only</em> applies if you’re on campus?</p>
<p>^agreed. The common misconception here is moving off-campus reduces your amount of aid, which is not the case. In fact, unless there’s unusual circumstances or weird exceptions, you should be getting a fat refund check as a result of living in apts.</p>
At Michigan, however, it is. And I’m not even living on campus next year so I really don’t have a dog in this fight, but the policy makes total sense considering housing is not guaranteed all four years. Out of all upperclassmen, sophomores are by far the most likely to need to live in dorms so they should get first priority. I’m pretty sure like half of the sophs live in the dorms, compared to apparently 9% of juniors. And you can still purchase the exact same meal plan as you would when you live in the dorms, you just have the option to make it less.</p>
<p>“so you think sophomores should move off campus and then move back on for their upperclassmen years? I’m sure that you would be ****ed if they told you as a sophomore than juniors and seniors were getting dorms before you”</p>
<p>No, because I understand the concept of seniority. Freshmen are already guaranteed housing, and this doesn’t change that. But as for sophomores, YES, they should be the first ones left out if it turns out that there aren’t enough spaces. If they really enjoy housing they will come back. It rewards those who were most loyal and paid the most into the system. If I were a sophomore, I would make sure to attend the stockwell theme community meetings so that I would live in stockwell (the sophomore only dorm). Thus, the sophomores that really cared would get still get housing (and really good housing too). If anyone should be screwed, yes, it should be the sophomores before juniors and seniors.</p>
<p>As for the “well you shouldn’t want to live in the dorms blah blah”, please don’t tell me, or others like me, how I should feel. I’m sure I’ll be spending much of my first few post school years in a crappy apartment, so I feel no rush to join that oh so magical experience. </p>
<p>Lets note that this wouldn’t even be an issue if admissions could get its act together and stop over enrolling. The past TWO years now we’ve heard them talk about how they want to significantly cut class sizes, yet they keep over enrolling because they overestimate how many in-staters want to jump in when the economy is in the tank (and I am an in-state student!)</p>
<p>There are a few scholarships like that, but obviously it only affects a small number of people total. Still, for those folks it’s going to be pretty annoying.</p>
<p>The tuition component doesn’t vary of course, but the room and board part doesn’t get paid if you don’t live in the dorm. This is true for the Shipman scholarship.</p>
<p>Just looked up the Shipman Scholarship, their website says recipients of the award can get “Special housing in the Shipman House in South Quad.” So anyone with this scholarship will get to live in squad if they want. Still not buying the scholarship argument.</p>