<p>Oldhat:</p>
<p>This issue of the neigborhood around USC has been discussed over and over and over again. It is a working class area with decent hardworking people. There is crime and blue light boxes on almost every campus in the country, rural and urban, including the one where I work.</p>
<p>Don't mean to offend anyone however, we visited over 30 colleges in and out of CA and none had the "prison like fencing" that USC has. I live here and I can tell you the area around USC is notably one of the worst in the state and "not" just because it has old houses and working class people. It has a high crime rate and that is no secret. I, by the way work in an area that does not have any blue call boxes. Yes, there are other schools in crime ridden areas but they also are not schools that I would like to see my children having to seek off campus housing at.</p>
<p>See 17-30 and 35-37.</p>
<p>Thanks, I concur with HImom.</p>
<p>OK. Fine. Not necessary to pay any attention to the stduents who actually go to school there. The end.</p>
<p>my D has technically been in on campus housing all 4 years.
3 years in dorms, which were easily as nice as her room at home and this year she is in an off campus 2 bedroom townhouse which was bought by the school to use for housing ( it is just across the street)</p>
<p>There is also apparently several houses around campus that for years have been rented out to Reed students, and after graduation she will be living at least for the summer in one of them while she works on campus.
Housing is a big issue though- we are only looking at schools which guarentee freshman housing for D2 and looking carefully at closeby options for off campus housing.</p>
<p>I never really considered housing when I applied to college & grad school ions ago. Both places I attended allowed me to stay in the dorms as long as I wanted & I liked the dorms & food. Both places also had nice communities with low-priced rentals that we enjoyed where you could walk or bike to campus. It's nice for students to be able to choose when they'd like to be on campus or move off & be able to move back to the dorms if that is the option they prefer. Good to know housing is such a big issue at so many campuses & something we need to carefully research before making final choices & sending in deposits.</p>
<p>USC has a gated perimeter fence on the parts of the south and east sides of campus across from the football stadium, for crowd and parking control I presume. The stadium holds 90,000+ and sells out every game. I guess if one were predisposed to think this prison-like then one would not be disappointed. The north and west sides are wide open. Not many prisons only have fences on one corner.</p>
<p>The neighborhood north of campus for 8-10 blocks is solid student apartments, some brand new and some not so new, but all are homey and nice (except for fraternity row after a weekend). The rest in other directions is working class neighborhood. It's not Malibu or Orange County, but there are schools there one can go to if the USC neighborhood is that much of a turn off. Those schools are a lot less popular and much easier to get into.</p>
<p>I get the crime reports and considering the school population is pushing 30,000 it is not too different from any other community or town of that size. Every once in a while some student walking home alone in the wee hours of the morning from the library or whatever gets hassled and his cash and Ipod stolen. That's about it. Nothing ever happens during the day or when students are with people.</p>
<p>yes in those rare instances when the students are allowed to mix with the real "people".</p>
<p>On topic, my sense is that supply roughly meets demand when it comes to on and off campus housing. If the balance tilts to too many disappointed students who would have lived on campus, then the next building built will be a dorm. Demand will lead supply since dorms can't be built overnight.</p>
<p>Thanks for your thoughts everybody. Some points have been hit here which are certainly concerns for me:</p>
<p>1) The problem of being forced off campus too soon (which could vary for kids, but certainly as a sophomore). I moved off campus as a junior, and I, for my particular circumstances, think even that was probably a mistake. Are you glad to have your own room and cook your own meals? Yes. But are you still well integrated into your college life? It probably depends...</p>
<p>2) The issue of fire traps. This is a huge issue for me. I worry about it a lot.</p>
<p>3) The conversion of lounges to living space. OK, that just stinks. I asked about that at Penn State and they, of course, put a positive spin on it with something like, oh the kids really like it. But when pressed, they admitted that there are dorms with no lounges left and there can be as many are 12 kids living in these lounges! And some of them are in the basement. Yikes! That's barracks, not a dorm.</p>
<p>4) I know juniors and seniors would prefer an apartment - and I don't blame them in the least. I suppose the ideal situation is like what my older son has, where there are very nice on-campus apartments the kids live in. Several problems solved - better housing, better relations with the town, better integrated into campus life.</p>
<p>5) I worry that in desperation for housing, frats are more appealing to colleges. And I just happen to hate frats. (No, let's NOT discuss that on this thread.) It's too easy to let someone else worry about housing. </p>
<p>Well, those are my thoughts anyway, and it is something we look at in case any colleges out there are listening!</p>
<p>My daughter is a sophomore at Rice, and I was worried about the housing, too. Probably the reason you couldn't get a "straight" answer from Rice proper about "how many kids who want to stay on campus can't?", is that each student-run college has its own system for determining who has priority to stay - freshman are guaranteed for all, but different colleges decide if some sophs or juniors get "jacked" off-campus. And some colleges have enough space for all students. Also, if a student really wants to stay on campus, there are ways to make that happen, (be a college officer, room with someone who has higher priority, etc.) My daughter was actually off-campus for the first semester (saved us money!), but decided she prefered being back on campus, and had no trouble getting a space. Some students prefer to live off-campus, and there is no shortage of closeby apartments, apartments on lightrail or shuttle route, furnished rooms, garage apartments, houses at a reasonable price. Students off-campus still remain strongly linked to their colleges, and often move back onto campus the following year. There is a lot of support for off-campus students. Don't let the possibility of off-campus housing for a year turn you off of a great school like Rice!</p>
<p>I should add to my post about the lounge.
In my building, we still had the two lounges on the main floor. One is a study lounge, the other a rec lounge. Here they only use lounges that are on typical residential floors. I'm sure that varies by school, but that's the way it is here at UNH at least. I did enjoy the open feel to our lounge, and it's location, but was certainly glad to get rid of the bunk beds and have my own space, rather than having my furniture spread all over the room like it was in the lounge. It was easier to become social with that many roommates too, because there were always people in there. Obviously the negative was when it was time to study, but I do live in the honors dorm, so that was a rare problem here.
12 is a whole lot of people in a room. Wow. The max here in a lounge is 5. I can't imagine 12</p>
<p>It would be a huge adjustment for many kids who mostly have had their own bedrooms (or perhaps shared with one sibbling) to suddenly be thrust into sharing with 4 or 11 strangers--I know I would have found that pretty tough.
Thanks for the info about Rice--all very interesting & helpful.</p>
<p>My D's school has dorms for freshman only but it is a college town with plenty of affordable places to live within walking distance of the campus. She was offered a room in an apartment when she went to visit the campus last spring so she bypassed the dorms entirely. She plans on staying in her apt until she graduate, s rotating new roomies in as older ones graduate.</p>
<p>S look for places with 4 year guaranteed housing. Something we encourgaged. We wanted him to study and not worry about what to eat, pay the rent, utilities, or how to get from apartment to the store, or who else is going to share the bedroom. If he wanted off campus, then that option would be available if he wanted that option. Cost of the school is already high for us, added cost and worry for housing could have killed the camel. </p>
<p>The schools that he chose, are places where off campus housing is scarce and on campus housing reasonable. He has friends at Boston U who moved off campus, not necessarily by choice. Its not cheap in Boston. Likewise my niece at JHU('96) and Penn('98) always had to trek about and search for transportation from her apartments. </p>
<p>Sorry about KJOFKW son's problem at CMU. Our S at 4 years on campus, at CMU. Once off campus, you lose your guaranteed housing status. Good Luck. </p>
<p>Off campus housing may build character but its a hassle that can be avoided.</p>
<p>Guaranteed housing for four years was definitely a consideration when Columbia went to the top of my daughter's college list. I did not want to be dealing with the responsibility of an apartment search and the subsequent roommate issues in NYC. She has not complained about the dorms. (I, on the other hand, cringed at the state of her dorm room when she moved in freshman year - she fixed it up and made it quite livable.). This year she had a nice apartment style dorm room and hopes for the same next year. She has one or two friends who wanted out Columbia housing and now lease on the UWS but the overwhelming majority of Columbia undergrads stay on campus for four years. By reading the Columbia Spectator I have learned that there is occasionally the need for some shuffling of students in the fall, with a few students living in hotels or lounges for a period of time....and there is always an article published sometime during the spring complaining about the housing lottery system.</p>
<p>Pitt, right down the street from CMU, has a similar housing policy. There is guaranteed housing for three years as long as you stay in the university housing system and get your deposits in on time. If you leave the system, you go to the bottom of the list if you want to return. </p>
<p>I'd like to know what seniors do. Seniors can apply for housing in university apartments, but space is not guaranteed. So, do you wait until spring to see if you get something, or do you get an apartment on your own earlier when the selection is better?</p>
<p>kjofkw, also sorry about your son's predicament. He may have a problem since as you know CMU temporarily houses a few freshmen (those who turned in their acceptances last I imagine) off campus till they can be accommodated in a dorm so space is obviously tight. My son at CMU lived off campus for a year but didn't have the bottom of the list problem, since he moved from fraternity (not a wild one;)) to apartment back to fraternity. Apt rent was comparable to Univ housing, if anything a little less. I wasn't aware of the going to the end of the line policy till I read this thread, but I imagine it isn't uncommon.</p>
<p>As far as off campus housing son and friends all had same reason for returning----a 15 minute walk (or wait for bus) can get old when it's 20 degrees in January, vs a 3 minute walk living on campus.</p>
<p>There are pros and cons for both on and off campus living arrangements. My ds moved off campus and into a 3 unit rowhouse with 10 friends(all 3 units happened to become available last June and they grabbed it fast). Its old and could be characterized as tenenemt chic. Is it a fire trap? It is a masonry structure and is basically safer than our 127 yr old victorian with balloon wall construction. </p>
<p>The big advantage is that they are saving about $4600/year. Each pays $400/mo($300 June-Aug) which includes rent, all utilities, tele, cable tv, internet connection and FOOD. They eat reasonable well too-veggie lasagna a few nights ago and "turducken" the weekend before Thanksgiving. They also have a charcoal grill on the back patio that they use when they get the urge for kabobs or burgers.</p>
<p>Another advantage is that there are fewer distractions that in a dorm. He got his first 4.0 gpa semester last term, the first that he was in the "house". Everyone has their own bedroom, though they are of varying size.</p>
<p>A third fact is that they are learning the domestic arts-cooking, food shopping, doing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, etc. Some may view this as a positive others as a negative.</p>
<p>When discussion turns to off campus apartments much is made of being isolated from campus life, and this may be true in a very limited sense if the apartment is located miles from campus. However by soph year most personal relationships have been made, nonacademics life is centered around clubs and organizations, and academics are more clearly focused.</p>
<p>And what can be more fun than organizing a Superbowl part, inviting a neighboring grad student over for a burger and a beer on the patio, inviting friends over for a T'giving dinner with all the trimmings, being able to have "friend" over for a weekend, having a basement so you can bring your kayak to college with you, having a place to stay if you want to return to campus early during break or during the summer. DS's house has done all these things(and yes he does own a kayak).</p>
<p>Safety, particulary for women, is definitely an issue. While apartments have smoke alarms, they do not have sprinkler systems. There are no emergency call boxes in off campus areas. Though most residences in the area of our son's place are student occupied, I would be uncomfortable with a daughter walking home alone late at night even though its only about 5 minutes away and crime statistics indicate that it is a reasonably safe area.</p>
<p>I believe that some people's objection to off campus living may be a result of the picture conjured up when thinking of an idealized college life. In fact the ideal college life is one that our students desire when they trundle off to academe.</p>