I just went on a tour of CU with my daughter and was surprised that the majority of kids live off campus sophomore year. I’ve always thought that dorms are where you make your friends and where you’re really a part of the campus, so I was a little discouraged to hear its only for a year. Any thoughts from students / former students? Do you still have opportunities to move out of your circle / house? Do you still use the campus facilities like the rec hall or dining halls? Did you like leaving the dorms freshman year or do you wish you could have stayed another year?
I am a parent, and familiar with the living situations on and around the Boulder campus. There are not safety issues in the city of Boulder, and good public bus transportation in the city.
Ask your daughter to apply to Residential Academic Programs (RAPs) and/or Living and Learning Communities. They have separate essays and those may be first come first served, so apply early. There is limited space in RAPs and LLCs, they are very popular living options. Each student gets a small scholarship to offset the additional costs of the RAP, and can live there all four years. Most students choose to live there two to three years.
This website looks dated, but the links seem to work,and shows the variety of options. Each program has its own set of essays to fill out and each living situation has a faculty family in residence, who you can call or email for more information.
http://www.colorado.edu/catalog/2012-13/artssciences/raps
Students who live in Global Engineering, Honors Engineering and other living groups do stay on campus longer. Its a slight advantage, but I think the students we know in apartments are doing just fine, as Boulder is easy to get around and in fact apartments may make it easier to study overall compared to say Williams Village or other freshman living situations where there are a lot of party goers.
I see the Colorado students I know either renting for 12 months a year with friends, or sometimes getting sublets. There is plenty of housing in and around Boulder and very easy for students to set up shared house situations with their friends they meet in freshman year.
By the way, most large state schools including Berkeley, do not house any undergraduates except freshman. Georgia Tech is an exception, but the costs of on campus, university owned apartments for sophomores, are about $2000 More than the freshman dorm situations. So, sophomores go off campus at GT too, to save money.
Private schools offer four years of on campus housing frequently, but not large public schools, as a general rule.
Thank you, this is so helpful! I’ll have her look into the RAP program, she’s a bio major, any dorm suggestions?
It looks like the Health Sciences RAP program is at Kitteridge. Any opinions on this dorm? My daughter said she doesn’t hear good things about it, but I’m not sure where she’s getting the from. I think it has to do with the location not being central.
Andrews Hall,the Engineering Honors program is also in Kitteridge, which is a big complex. Its well located near classes and fine, as I remember ! I might have that wrong so pull up the CU campus map. Remember, its only nine months. Kids overblow the importance of the size of the room. I think the RAPs are all known to be good, but I am most familiar with the engineering focused living groups. One advantage of an RAP is that a faculty family lives with the students. Another is that the kids who are more motivated to study hard end up in RAPs in general. Another is, freshman take a seminar class with the other RAP residents and get to know them. Its very helpful to have adults living with freshman and also upper classmen living with freshman, in my opinion. RAPS are very good for that helpful support that freshman may need.
This year they have an “unprecedented amount of returning students wanting to live on campus next year”. Our daughter got an email stating that they are offering returning students a 120 meal plan and help finding off campus living for the Fall semester.
"The residence halls have experienced an unprecedented demand by returning students for housing than space available. At this time, because we were not anticipating such a high demand for returning student housing, there will be a delay in communicating assignments.
At this time, we are looking for people to voluntarily cancel their housing contract for the Academic Year 2017-18. Should you seek alternative housing options and cancel your residence hall application by March 8, we will issue your current $300 deposit to your Bursars account upon cancellation. We will also offer you a free 120 block meal plan for the Fall 2017 semester. Additionally, Off Campus Housing & Neighborhood Relations is a resource available to students seeking off-campus housing. Please email studenthousing@colorado.edu to cancel your application and have your current deposit sent to your Bursars account. The meal plan will automatically be activated for you the first week of fall classes.
More information will be available via email, March 15, regarding the returning student housing confirmation and assignment process.
Best,
Your Student Housing Team"
Our Daughter was in the Engineering Quad this year and is in the Global Engineering RAP for next year.
@Chinamom2 Global Engineering RAP has a very good resident faculty family and all the students we know love it there and often live there all four years. CU Boulder, like Berkeley does not have enough housing for upper classmen. But if demand goes up, they may build more. CU Boulder is well funded by our state for buildings, less well funded for other aspects of education, but President Benson continues to lobby our state for more funding.
- Bakers
- Kitteridge
That seems to be the general consensus of dorm quality/location.