<p>My d is a freshman and therefore has lived on the VT campus just 2 months and she's already talking about living off campus and getting a 4 bedroom appartment at Foxridge with 4 of her friends (2 guys, 2 girls). I haven't done a complete comparison but it seems that when you have to buy your own furniture, electricity, Internert access, cable etc, it will be a lot more expensive than living on campus. Plus I don't think that at 18 she is mature enough for this kind of thing. She is pressuring us right now for a decision (and I feel a No would not please her). Can anybody with some experience in the matter tell me what they think?</p>
<p>A lot (I'd say most) sophomores are off campus. Foxridge is really nice. Really expensive but really nice. If you trust her enough to live in the dorms then you should trust her enough to live off campus.</p>
<p>Thanks chuy. I didn't realize that a lot of sophomores lived off campus. But isn't living on campus much more convenient? And you don't have to worry about paying bills. Everything is taken care of.</p>
<p>Hi guillaume,
My freshman son is doing the same. He and 2 friends are opting to get an apartment off campus also-believe it is called Mapleridge. I would prefer he remain on campus, but they don't want to have to deal with lottery choices and having to find another roommate (or more) for quad situation if they got lucky to get one of those. They are looking at renting furniture or waiting until end of year when seniors might be selling furniture. It will definitely cost more and son will need to finance some of this.</p>
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Thanks chuy. I didn't realize that a lot of sophomores lived off campus. But isn't living on campus much more convenient? And you don't have to worry about paying bills. Everything is taken care of.
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As a sophomore you aren't even guaranteed housing, so it can come down to near the end of the school year and you find out you have to scramble to get an apartment anyway. Living on campus is convenient though, I'll definitely admit that. There's also a lot of good about living off campus though. You get your own kitchen, your own (or only shared with one or two people) bathroom, a bit more freedom, a LOT more room, probably not sleeping in the same room as someone else every night. </p>
<p>septembermom - The townhouses at maple ridge are amazing. They're also amazingly expensive, though, haha. I'm pretty sure they have "normal" apartments there too.</p>
<p>Hi chuy,
Yeah, talk about sticker shock with those townhouses. However, price is pretty reasonable compared to apartments up this way. Son will be forking over some of his hard earned money to help foot the bill for this. Heck, they look so nice I might sell the house and move in too. Wouldn't he love that! We are still encouraging son to take out some type of meal plan though. I can't imagine that he will want to come back early evening and prepare meal.
How is your year going? Classes going well I hope. Can't believe how quickly this term is going by. Sign up for next semester's classes is underway already.</p>
<p>Its going pretty well. Hard, and busy, but I expected that, haha. Yeah, they have smaller meal plans for off campus people, and unless he really likes cooking that'd probably be a good idea. Make sure you do the math on how much you pay for the meal plan and how much you can buy with that (you pay some sort of overhead fee with the meal plan) and see how much he'd have to spend to make it "worth it" to get the plan as opposed to just buying the food with cash, but the overhead fees are a lot less for off campus people, so if he eats a few meals a week it'll probably be worth it.</p>