<p>Bigdoglover, is your son moving in early? If not, you might look at that option as it’ll save your sanity, avoiding the hordes on the scheduled move-in date. It also allows more time to buy books, meet neighbors, get acclimated etc. I’ve done with this with both my kids and it’s the best $30/night I’ve ever spent.</p>
<p>BobbyCT, ISU’s campus has won national awards for landscaping, as I’m sure you learned. It is quite beautiful. Your experience on IC’s ped mall is not typical. While IC does have some urban crime you will generally find the ped mall clean and very much alive on any given Saturday or summer evening. After dark during the school year you will find copious numbers of students walking, shopping and going from bar to bar.</p>
<p>My D just received her acceptance notice from Iowa. Just as I expected, she is now interested in revisiting.</p>
<p>^Maybe come back for a football game this fall? :)</p>
<p>sally305, that’s a great idea. I remember getting some kind of admitted-student tickets to an early season game and it was a great time. If my son was on the fence about Iowa before that weekend he sure wasn’t afterwards. Even if you’re not a football fan there’s nothing like Iowa City on game weekend. The school spirit is unbelievable.</p>
<p>The Admissions Counselor as well as student tour guide both strongly recommended that an accepted student submit their acceptance form with a partially refundable deposit so that they can request their housing. As I understand, the earlier you submit your preference, the higher the chance you will be assigned the dorm that you would like.</p>
<p>We only saw Burge Hall. I do not recall seeing any other dorms on our tour. Can anyone recommend which dorms might be best for a freshman that prefers to be closer to the Pentacrest area?</p>
<p>Bobby looking on line Iowa has some LLC that look really interesting. The one for OOS is one your DD might want to look at. Does anyone know how to request football tickets because we have not visit yet and that sounds like a great way to see the Hawkeye spirit.</p>
<p>BobbyCT, your understanding of the process is correct. You want to make that deposit as early as possible because failure to do so will get you a third-choice dorm across the river or, worse yet, the “temp housing” arrangement in which 3 students are piled into some sort of closet for a couple months. </p>
<p>Burge is the go-to freshman dorm and does have the convenience of the dining hall being in the building. It does have a reputation for being less than studious. I personally like the idea of the LLCs and it helped my son make a lot of friends in his academic area who remain his friends today.</p>
<p>I asked my son for his input and here’s his report (he is entering his 4th year):</p>
<p>If an athlete, pick Hillcrest (across the river)
If honors student, pick Daum
If neither, Burge or Stanley.
Currier’s rooms are smaller
Quad is “crappy” and far away</p>
<p>He lived in Stanley and it is quieter than Burge and 50 feet away from it. I’d place it near the top of my list if non-honors. If honors, definitely Daum.</p>
<p>Seems to me a new blding is under construction. Not sure if it’ll be done next fall or not.</p>
<p>newfaith, my memory of the football ticket thing is pretty fuzzy. I’d shoot your counselor an email. Suffice it to say that without it you are doomed to buying tickets on StubHub as all home games sell out well in advance.</p>
<p>Just fyi, this year everyone is required to be in an LLC. Not every LLC is in every dorm so the selection is different. A lot of schools have started to emphasize LLC’s but at Iowa it is now required. They do give many options - maybe too many - some seem more specialized while others are very general.</p>
<p>I don’t see how this year timing really mattered for dorm selection. i would still put a deposit down as it is refundable (different than most schools).</p>
<p>beastman, my S is not checking in early because freshmen already go 5 days before classes start…seems like plenty of time to get situated.</p>
<p>bigdog I appreciate your comments as it shows how obsolete my knowledge of some of this stuff is! Yikes. I’ll tread carefully when it comes to this detailed administrative stuff.</p>
<p>HA, I’m sure its not obsolete - things seem to be changing quickly at Iowa as it relates to this LLC concept. Even since last fall it went from we have LLC’s to you must pick one for your living arrangements.</p>
<p>Having been involved with Iowa for 3 years I have no doubt we can all learn much from you.</p>
<p>FYI about football ticket availability…
“there are no sellouts but only a few tickets remain for the Michigan State, Wisconsin and Northwestern games. However thousands of tickets are available for Iowa’s games against Northern Illinois, Missouri State, Western Michigan and the home finale against Michigan.” </p>
<p>[Ticket</a> sales up at ISU, down at Iowa | TheGazette](<a href=“http://thegazette.com/2013/08/07/ticket-sales-up-at-isu-down-at-iowa/]Ticket”>Ticket sales up at ISU, down at Iowa | The Gazette)</p>