<p>She said maybe boys could live there, but the units she saw were seriously dated, run down, and in need of serious upgrades.</p>
<p>Ugh. This has me so worried. But DS is totally committed to moving into Bryce Lawn with his buds.</p>
<p>Fortunately, yes, he’s a boy.</p>
<p>BTW–does anyone know whether Bryce Lawn has wireless? The UA Housing site does not mention; it just says there are ethernet-cable hookups. DS has an IPad and definitely needs wireless access.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>These are indeed some very anxiety producing posts and I’m glad I’m not dealing with it!</p>
<p>My son is a current freshman in honor’s housing with no housing scholarhsip. I told him early in the fall that he needed to start thinking about where he wanted to live next year and that he needed to start actively looking right after break.</p>
<p>I was planning on signing him up for the housing renewal as a backup plan. Around Thanksgiving he told me that he and a friend were thinking about getting a 2 bedroom at East Edge for next year. I looked at the price and said, “No way”. I said that if they found more roommates the 4 bedrooms at East Edge were possible, but I wasn’t going to pay <em>more</em> than I was paying for the dorm. So, he and his friend found another friend and also decided to look at a few more locations. They went to the Woodlands and “fell in love” - I’ve only seen their website, but son talked for days about how great they were and that they had a shuttle to campus and had hardwood floors throughout the unit. He was eager to sign the lease because the complex was offering a discount to students that signed before the holiday break. The units come furnished, but don’t include utilities, however you can pay an additional monthly amount that includes a capped amount of utilities - the discount was almost equal to the additional monthly utility fees. </p>
<p>The 3 of them figured out how to get the lease signed (which took some emailing and faxing since my son is 18 and too young to sign the lease in Bama, so technically it is in my name), paid desposits, and had everything in order BEFORE the holiday break.</p>
<p>When the date came around to sign up for the housing renewal, I didn’t even bother.</p>
<p>The total cost including utilities is about $2K less than I’m paying for honors housing and as he is very content living on those 50 cent frozen burritos, I expect he’ll need much less of a food budget. </p>
<p>The unit has a washer and dryer included so no more need to pay $5/week for laundry.</p>
<p>With the shuttle to campus, I’m hoping that may also be less in gas/parking money (we’ll discuss if he needs a parking pass for campus next year or not).</p>
<p>Also I can forego the cost of a PO Box, since he’ll actually be able to receive mail.</p>
<p>Back when I was in college, I also moved off campus after my freshman year and complexes that focus on student housing are really not much different than the dorms, just a LITTLE farther away. I’m not at all concerned about him moving off campus and am thrilled that he seems to be very happy with his choice and even more happy that I’m not sharing in all of this anxiety!</p>
<p>^^ I’m glad that worked out for you and your son!</p>
<p>I think one problem some of the kids are having (which won’t be a problem for the class starting in Fall 2013) is that you’ll have a group of 4 that currently live together and/or want to live together as sophs and some will be NMF with housing scholarship and some won’t be. So at this point only the NMFs know for sure they’ll be able to stay on campus, but the others don’t want to make plans off-campus without their NMF friends until they know for sure that they can’t get on-campus housing. They know now that as juniors they’ll need to find other NMF’s/non-NMF’s with whom to live, but they’re up in the air now. This wasn’t a problem in prior years as kids who started in a living learning community (honors) got to stay there if they wanted.</p>
<p>I do realize that having a housing scholarship puts another huge variable in the mix, but my post was more directed at those who have students who are not yet on campus and all the lurkers out there to say that this really does not have to be such an anxiety provoking experience.</p>
<p>I also realize that the university has to determine how many incoming freshman they are going to have that will need housing (and how many will have exemptions) and how many students with housing scholarships want to continue living on campus (versus those that are willing to forego their scholarships to move off-campus) before they can get a handle on how many rooms are available for ‘the rest of the students’, so at this point it’s difficult for them to even predict how many rooms might be available…but I’d hate to see students without housing scholarships wait too long and find out that they won’t get housing when all the in demand off-campus locations are full and they have to settle for the left-overs. </p>
<p>When I didn’t expect my son to sign a lease before break, I was fully intending on signing up for housing renewal so we had a ‘back-up plan’. I know even if my son was hoping to live on campus, if I didn’t know it was guaranteed, I’d be thinking about a back-up plan for that too, I’d be on the phone calling complexes asking how much availability they still had, making a list of preferred locations, and having a plan in order so if he didn’t get housing on campus, the minute I found out, we had a plan in place for an alternative.</p>
<p>RE: Phase II of Presidential Village.</p>
<p>Ground work takes a lot of time and was going on for awhile. Once ground work is complete, it really doesn’t take as long as you think to build the actual structure these days. So, much is manufactured off-site and brought in and “installed” so to speak. The entire method of building has changed in recent years. Things aren’t “constructed by scratch” on site anymore. </p>
<p>I remember not believing that Ridgecrest West and East would be done when my older son started at Bama so he opted for Riverside West. As scheduled, Ridgecrest completed on time. </p>
<p>So, when S2 started at Bama, I trusted that Ridgecrest South would complete for his Fall frosh year, and it was. :)</p>
<p>when did they start on Phase II?</p>
<p>i would think that they have the dorm building business down and that they know how long it takes. they can’t really plan on a dorm being ready and then have it not be ready.</p>
<p>they are building a super suite style dorm at A&M. kids lived in old dorms one year, they were torn down after the school year ended and they are slated to open this fall. </p>
<p>seems that some types of construction go MUCH quicker than residential (building houses).</p>
<p>As long as wet weather does not impede the site grading and concrete foundation process, modular construction goes up super fast via crane ( thanks to processes developed to build in tight urban sites such as Manhatten). Once the shell is up, tradesmen can finish the interior quickly. In fact, as stated above, sometimes the modules arrive on site nearly complete inside and out.</p>
<p>My son was considering Highlands. You said your daughter said it was run down. Any word on any updating before the Fall 2013? Sounds like this might not be a good option.</p>