<p>I'm really new to this whole residence thing and I've been looking around on various websites but am hoping to pool together some general information here. I've applied to all of my graduate programs and am waiting for offers of admission. I'm wondering if it's expected/normal to start applying for residence right now or if it is too early? If it's too early, when do people usually apply (presumably after offers have been made I suppose)?</p>
<p>The idea is that I can always decline if I don't get accepted or don't want to go to a particular school. But apparently most places require an application fee so I think without an offer of admission it seems too early. I'm just worried that I'll be offered admission and end up with no place to sleep, ha! </p>
<p>I would really prefer to live in residence too unless y'all have some stories for me. :D But yeah, any residence related information, especially regarding timing and applying, would be great. Also, do y'all have any idea when the application deadlines for this kind of thing are? I'm having trouble finding this information for graduate student residence/housing.</p>
<p>The 14 graduate programs I applied to fell into two categories: universities without on-campus housing for graduate students, and universities where I could not apply for housing until after I was accepted. The latter was enforced in a variety of ways. A few universities did their housing applications through an online platform and you can’t submit an application until you have an account. A few universities require a student ID (which may not be assigned until after you decide to enroll). One university gave me a unique code that allowed me (and only me) to apply for housing in my acceptance letter.</p>
<p>You can most certainly find the housing application procedures on the university websites. If you are concerned about missing out by not submitting an application in January, go ahead and find out now; but odds are that you won’t need to do anything until you have an admission decision in hand.</p>
<p>I pretty much agree with everything barium said. For a lot of schools I looked at there was a lottery system as to which new students would get housing from the school, and the rest had to fend for themselves off campus.</p>
<p>Worst case scenario I see is you find a sublet on Craigslist or something for the first term and during that time try to find longer term housing.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for these replies. I felt it was a bit of a stupid question but your responses are quite helpful. </p>
<p>I would love to hear more replies on this topic and I would add something to my original post: has anyone here every heard of graduate students being reserved places in residence? For undegraduates, given the sheer volume, this may not be tenable but for graduate students who are being funded and are an investment of sorts for departments, it seems like they should. It would be a good idea if they did!</p>
<p>There are some places that reserve spots in student housing for graduate students, but I don’t think this is something typical.</p>
<p>In my experience, schools are more concerned about housing undergraduates, especially younger ones, since these are the people that are less ready for living on their own. Graduate students are more mature and more comfortable managing their own housing situation.</p>
I am not sure what you are asking. Most universities separate graduate housing from undergraduate housing. (For example, undergraduate housing operates on an academic year schedule while graduate students often need year-round housing.) In this sense, most universities “reserve” residence spaces for the graduate student population.</p>
<p>However, I have never heard of housing being reserved for any single student in particular. I am not even sure how that would make sense. There’s no point in reserving space for students who have not yet made a commitment to attend or expressed an interest in on-campus housing; and all universities already have a formal procedure in place for distributing a limited amount of residence spaces among all students who have formally expressed interest (“applied for housing”).</p>
<p>Not sure how helpful this is, but I know, at my undergrad institution, we have at least one whole residence hall for grad students (probably includes med school, law school, business school students). The grad students in my lab said that most of them lived on campus their first year and then moved out. I also know some who found an apartment right away instead staying in housing. It sounds like, at least at my school, if you want to live in housing, they can find space for you.</p>
<p>At my school, applications for housing didn’t open until April 1, after you were accepted. There weren’t enough spaces for everyone to live on campus, so I made sure to submit the application the day they opened. Worked out fairly well, except the dorms kind of suck… I can see why most people move out after a year.</p>
<p>ALL of these replies have been helpful - thank you so much for them. </p>
<p>b@r!um, I meant along the lines of what warblersrule has indicated in response to your post - when I said “reserve places for graduate students”, I don’t mean in the sense of separate facilities for graduate students, but rather whether housing is guaranteed as part of the admissions offer (e.g. “If you accept, you will have a guaranteed place in residence if you should choose this option”) or funding package as warblersrule put it.</p>
<p>I know several universities that guarantee housing to all first-year graduate students, but I am not personally aware of a university that guarantees housing to some students and not others. (Though it seems that other posters on this thread know of examples.) </p>
<p>To be honest, I also can’t imagine how that could ever be a good idea. Would you guarantee housing to students on departmental funding but not national fellowship recipients or students who are taking out big loans to get through med school? Maybe international students but not domestic ones? Or minorities but not white middle-class men? Lotteries and first-come-first-serve seem to be the fairest way to allocate limited housing spaces.</p>
<p>Not to mention that in many places, the distinction between living on- and off-campus is pretty small. In graduate school, it really all comes down to distance and cost. Nearby the main campus of my university, the graduate housing is the best bet because it’s the only affordable housing that’s really close by. You could move to a slightly farther and less safe neighborhood for cheaper housing, or you could move even farther away for even cheaper housing.</p>
<p>But nearby the medical center campus? Off-campus housing in the same neighborhood is cheaper than the on-campus stuff. And in many cases, it’s better quality.</p>