<p>Saint Louis was declared the most dangerous city in the US in the last few months. What do you think of the surroundings of SLU ? Is there some safety concerns ?</p>
<p>Both SLU and WUSTL have gotten a bad rap in recent surveys regarding safety. The City of St Louis’s crime statistics are a heavy influence on these ratings, from what I can tell. The stats do not reflect the safety of the surrounding suburbs. SLU’s campus resides within the City of St Louis and WUSTL’s campus sits right on the border of the City and St Louis County. </p>
<p>Being an urban campus, I am certain that SLU works very hard to assure its students’ safety on campus. But, like anywhere, students need to use good sense on and off campus. They’ve done a lot to enclose the campus, it is well lighted, things like that. Check with the school, but it is likely that they offer campus escorts for late night trips home from the library or events. On any college campus, students need to be smart about securing personal items, computers, and cars. Trips off campus should be in pairs or groups. St Louis is not crime free, but you can go about the city safely.</p>
<p>Kids in St Louis can safely go to restaurants, attend a baseball game or go to concerts downtown. I would encourage them steer them away from “clubs” (where they are often too young to be anyway). Also, having a general knowledge of one’s surroundings is a good safety precaution – know which areas of town are student friendly!</p>
<p>Agree with 4getit. Use good sense. Don’t wander outside by yourself when it’s really late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. Don’t open your apartment door to anyone you don’t know. Most of the reported crimes in SLU have been burglary (both inside the apartments and outside in the streets), attempted robbery and assault. But i’m sure this is not exclusive to SLU.</p>
<p>Just visited SLU last Saturday and I didn’t see any emergency response system in the campus like other schools have. Goggled the crime map, looks like the crime locations are not far from SLU. Very worried since D likes to go to SLU when she heard that the honors students can have their own dorm room. </p>
<p>Is it true that the honors students can have their own dorm room? Also for the current SLU students, do you feel safe at SLU? what about night?</p>
<p>Hey sun168 I was just at SLU last Saturday, too, and have decided that I’m going to attend next fall. Blue light systems do exist on campus and according to my tour guide the campus security can be seen around and they are willing to escort you home any night that you are alone. Yes the honors dorm is made up of all singles, its called Fuse. </p>
<p>Any urban campus is going to have crime surrounding it. I’m concerned, too, but the most important thing is to be smart and never walk alone at night – best to travel in groups which I think is popular. Also, there are so many apartments that are literally one block from campus, so as students we will be in the safe zone and not roaming the streets alone when we live off campus. Most of the apartments have locked front doors as a first protection from strangers getting into the buildings. </p>
<p>My tour guide was a freshman and said she feels very safe on campus. They take the Metro-link out at night if going downtown, but always takes a cab home. This makes sense to me. Be aware – become street smart – and I think, at least, I will be OK. I’m so looking forward to being in a urban environment and exploring the city on weekends.</p>
<p>Campus has blue light systems like other schools, but I don’t think a single person uses them. You can call SLU ride if you need to travel someplace at night, and they will drive you there safely (this almost isn’t necessary but is a nice option). </p>
<p>Maybe two or three times a month there would be campus alert emails regarding safety, and these all took place in either unlocked apartments, or at three in the morning to someone walking alone. The suspects described in the emails would almost always stick out like a sore thumb, which I believe is why there are so few problems. As a guy I feel safe walking alone at night if I have to, but this is college and most people will be out traveling with friends anyway if they want to go someplace late night. For what purpose would one be walking around a city alone at night? </p>
<p>I do always insist on escorting girls after dark, but even they would probably agree that it is not necessary if they are in groups and aren’t going far from campus. I would feel horrible if anything happened to any of them, but the off campus places of interest that one would travel to consistently at night are literally right across the street and therefore pretty safe for people to go on their own. </p>
<p>Cardinals and Blues games may be a different story if the games start late, but then you would probably drive/take a cab anyway, so safety isn’t really an issue. From what I understand, the reason the crime rate looks so bad on paper is because the counties are not factored in to the statistics like they are with cities such as Chicago.</p>
<p>All things considered this is not a dangerous campus, and this is coming from one of the county residents who grew up with the impression that crime was a myth. I thought that living in the city would pose a few threats but after a few weeks I felt right at home. </p>
<p>Oh, and honors students can live in single rooms in Fusz, but being an honors student myself I am relieved I did not get placed there. You meet so many more people in the Gries complex(Clemens, Walsh, and Gries), Reinert, and even Marguerite to an extent. The social aspect of college did not seem important to me when I was applying to schools, but just know that Fusz takes anti-social to a new level. I know two people that lived there and hate it, but most people don’t know anyone living there at all. It is mostly a sophomore dorm, and only one floor of freshman means even less people to meet.</p>
<p>If you are choosing it because of fear of being distracted, the library is always open and a great alternative to studying in the dorms. If you are choosing it because you think having a room to yourself would be better, most of my acquaintances would agree with me in saying that sharing a room for a year in the other dorms will make life on campus much more enjoyable. If it is because you think it would be safer, then yes I guess perhaps it would, but I don’t think there was a single safety issue in any of the dorms all year long.</p>
<p>Amen, Spartan2010! Thanks for explaining the crime statistics part: I`m a SLU student from Chicago and I get tired of explaining to people that STL is NOT, in fact, the most dangerous city, its just a distortion of statistics based on the separation of STL city and STL county.
For all those worried about safety on campus, I can tell you, as a female who has lived there for three years, that common sense is your best tool. Yes a city has crime, but by following all the advice that people have posted in this thread before, you can avoid it. Ill add that I have really odd study habits, and usually go to the library between 11pm and 1am, and leave around 3am and 5am, and I always either call a campus security escort or get offered a ride from one of the officers doing patrol (theyre EVERYWHERE). Little things like this help me feel a lot safer and I`ve never had any problems.</p>