I’m a high-school junior, who is searching for colleges. I’m mainly interested in colleges that have high percentages of students living on campus, like Cal Poly SLO and Santa Clara University; I live in California, and I plan to stay here for college.
This seems very low, in comparison to SLO’s 37% of all students living on campus, and Santa Clara’s 52% of all students living on campus. Is there anyone on this forum that goes to San Diego State, and do you feel like it’s a residential campus or a commuter campus?
It is rather likely that the other 31% of frosh are commuters. At many of these schools, resident non-frosh commonly live off-campus, so it is hard to get much information from the overall percentage living on campus.
This was posted on the decision thread from an SDSU alumni/parent. Good information
Regarding living near SDSU: You’ll find more and more SDSU students are now living on or near campus than they were 10 - 30 years ago. Lots of non-college owned/affiliated apartments, condos, “mini-dorms,” houses,etc. are available in the College Area. Many sophomores and juniors live closer to campus on Montezuma Rd., 54th Street, Reservoir, Alvarado, College Avenue, Collwood, and other surrounding neighborhoods that are walking distance to campus. SDSU has an underground trolley station, and two stops eastbound are a few huge apartment complexes that cater to students. For older students, some choose to live in a close by city like La Mesa (quick drive/bus/trolley from campus) or in one of the surrounding communities (the city of San Diego is divided into several “communities”) like Del Cerro and San Carlos, both areas have quite a few apartment complexes/rentals/condos that rent to students. Del Cerro/San Carlos are about 2 miles away from the campus if you take College Avenue over I-8. The College Area Community (which includes SDSU) is a residential area, but sometimes due to how the area was designed it is hard to see all the streets that are hidden away unless you are purposely driving through the area looking for them. Plus SDSU has added new dorms and apartment complexes on/near campus, with a new multi-use dorm opening in August.
What I have enjoyed seeing is how busy and popular the school is on the weekends, holidays, etc. from August - June. Lots of activities and events, as well as students using the ARC, Aquaplex, Student Union, etc., and if there is a sporting event, the place is absolutely wild. Many, many years ago when I was a student there, the campus was somewhat quiet during the weekends/evenings. I was over there on one of the recent holidays, and students were everywhere.
Most CSU’s only guarantee on-campus dorms/aprtments for 2 years so by 3rd year the majority of students will live off campus by many will remain nearby.