My daughter was just accepted to UW-MADISON as a first year student. She is on the wait list for a housing contract. The school is not able to give us any indication of whether a spot will open up for her in the dorms. She prefers the dorms — traditional college experience, will meet more freshmen — but we are nervous about waiting too long and getting locked out of both the good dorms and the private dorms off-campus, like Dorm@Lucky, which has a compelling website. Any advice?
Do not count on the Res Halls waitlist. However, with the pandemic strange things could happen with housing. No matter where a freshman lives they will be a part of the UW campus. In past years there are some with a housing contract who live in temporary Res Halls housing situations (dens, short course dorms) for the first month or so until some students drop out et al. This year is different but students likely will keep their Res Halls space as it is most likely to be best run.
Congrats on your D getting in. The major hurdle for a UW education has been passed. btw- most students do not live in the dorms past freshman year today. Housing is not the total experience, students are not confined to that. She can choose to pay to eat with friends in Res Halls dining facilities so no necessary separation for meals among those she meets in classes.
My son is in the same situation. He just came off the waitlist, and accepted the offer. He’s now waitlisted for university housing.
What did your daughter end up doing? Based on your comment we checked out Dorm@Lucky, my son filled out an application for Eagle Heights and has also checked out some of the stevebrownapts. But its hard to be sure what are good options, as we’re OOS (WA) and haven’t visited the campus.
Just keep in mind with off campus housing if the schools shuts down your liable for the whole year. While the dorms you can get out of the contract
@EnggParent , from what I understand through my daughter who is a rising junior at UW, dorm@Lucky is probably better option for freshman than other apartments like The Hub and The James. The latter are nice with high-end amenities, but they have a bent towards greek upper classmen. The location is near State Street (bars) and Langdon (Greek row). Lucky is directly across the street from campus on one side and 3 large freshman dorms and dining hall on the other side. Lucky has a mix of freshmen and upper classmen and has a fair share of Int’l students too.
Another option is to look for people subletting their apartments or rooms, which can be found on various Facebook groups (just search Madison Rentals/Sublets and you should find some of these groups) or directly on property management websites. Also, people not living in housing are not allowed to eat at dining halls this semester, so keep that in mind.
Dorms@lucky is a good option if your daughter is fine with sharing a bedroom, but if she wants her own bedroom, finding a sublet will be cheaper in most cases.
A third option is finding co-op housing. These typically involve sharing cleaning responsibilities among residents and either a cook preparing meals (like for the Zoe-Bayliss Women’s Cooperative) or Residents making meals for everyone on a rotating basis.
In the past year, I’ve gotten a lot of experience in looking for apartments as a student (finally got mine for this upcoming year!), so if you have any questions, let me know.
@Enggparent where did your student find off campus housing?
My son fortunately came off the wait list for university housing. He got a room in Chad (Chadbourne residence hall), which he’s accepted.
I know of one local who recently gave up his UW dorm since he did not feel comfortable living on campus and all of his classes are online (and can save $10k by living at home).
There could still be movement on the housing wait list.
I think that’s true. My son came off the waitlist for UW admissions pretty late, and so he was very late to register with campus housing. And so in a normal year, I don’t think that he would have got a dorm room. But in this abnormal year he came off the dorm waitlist in about 3 days.