*sigh* Supplemental Housing :(

Colleges and Universities A-Z The University of Texas at Austin
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<p>Ok, so basically I was unaware that I should have applied for housing as soon as possible. I just assumed that since my roommate preference chose me as her roommate preference and applied early, that we would automatically be placed together. I was obviously wrong lol. I applied for housing and paid the $50 application fee on July 1st and recieved a supplemental housing contract July 12th, which was also the deadline to accept it. After considering Dobie, I decided against it, paid the $300, and accepted the contract around 11:30 pm (The deadline was 12:00). So I was most likely one of the last if not the very last person to accept the housing contract.</p>

<p>Anyway...
I have several unanswered questions about supplemental housing.</p>

<p>1) Is supplemental housing really that bad? What can I expect? What were your or your friends' experiences with supplemental housing?</p>

<p>2) Since there are supplemental rooms in most dorms, which one will I most likely be placed in? (Although room assignments have been rolling out, I have not recieved my room information yet, and probably will not for awhile).</p>

<p>3) What type of bathroom can I expect? I'm not exactly gung-ho on the idea of a community bathroom :( What are community bathrooms like?</p>

<p>4) Will there be enough room for my dorm accessories? I know the lounge is bigger than a normal dorm, but the space is also shared with 3 other people as opposed to a normal dorm with 2 people.</p>

<p>5) Will there be cable and internet? If so, What ResNet option should be enough for me per week- 5gb or 20 gb?</p>

<p>6) Are there closets? If so, will they have to be shared with the other roomates, or will we each have our own closet space? Will there be desks and dressers? If so, how many?</p>

<p>7) I know beds vary from dorm to dorm at UT. Most dorms have XL twin sized beds, but some have regular twin sized beds. I don't want to wait until the very last minute to shop for bedding, so which size should I buy?</p>

<p>8) This is unrelated to the housing situation, but should I bring my car on campus as a first year student? I'm from Houston (about 3-3.5 hrs away). At what point should it bring it? I was thinking 1st year, second semester. Will I even need it?</p>

<p>Basically, I would just like as much information on supplemental housing as possible. I have searched this forumn and around on the internet, but have not found any answers to these questions. Answers to any of the above questions will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! (:</p>

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<p>I emailed housing and they said that people in supplemental housing won’t get their assignment until we check in.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>No, it’s fine. The only negative, if any, is that you don’t have sink in your room. But then again most dorms (Prather, Roberts, Blanton, etc, do not have sinks in rooms either). You can expect a normal dorm experience.</p></li>
<li><p>Jester, I’m guessing. There are not supplemental in Brack/Roberts/Prather, and I don’t think Moore Hill either. San Jac and Duren don’t because they are all private bathroom.</p></li>
<li><p>Community bathroom. Don’t worry, it’s fine. All showers are separate with their own curtains/hooks/shelves/etc. Most of the time there won’t even be another person in there at the same time. You’ll get used to it very fast, and it won’t be a big deal.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, it’s actually much larger. Supplemental housing is made out of study lounges, which are quite spacious. You will have more room per person than a normal dorm. The only negative is no dedicated closets. They do provide a wardrobe like thing that allows you to hang up what you need to hang. It’s as big as the closets were in my dorm.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, there will be plugs for both. Resnet 5gb is fine for 90% of people. Unless you download lots of high definition movies (and I mean like, 3 a week) you don’t need a higher plan.</p></li>
<li><p>See #4 also. You will have the same desk the people in the other rooms get (but it won’t be built in, it’ll be a desk like they give in San Jac/Prather/etc). There will be a dresser too, and that wardrobe I mentioned in #4.</p></li>
<li><p>Twin XL.</p></li>
<li><p>No. Parking is atrocious. And you really don’t need a car. You get free access to the Austin bus system and there are UT shuttles to popular destinations. I got by without a car freshman year, and sophomore year I am still not bringing one.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Trying to answer as best as I can, but I haven’t lived in the dorms since 2008.</p>

<p>1) Is supplemental housing really that bad? What can I expect? What were your or your friends’ experiences with supplemental housing? </p>

<p>As with everything there is the good and bad with supplemental housing. The rooms are former study lounges converted so the set up is a bit different. I personally liked the layout more of the supplemental housing then some of the rooms (like in Jester or Moore Hill).</p>

<p>2) Since there are supplemental rooms in most dorms, which one will I most likely be placed in? (Although room assignments have been rolling out, I have not recieved my room information yet, and probably will not for awhile). </p>

<p>As far as I remember the supplemental housing was in Jester and San Jacinto. I imagine that there might be also some in Kinsolving and Duren because they also have the lounges on multiple floors.</p>

<p>3) What type of bathroom can I expect? I’m not exactly gung-ho on the idea of a community bathroom What are community bathrooms like? </p>

<p>You’re prob going to end up with a community bath. I haven’t heard of any other set-up than that for supplemental housing. Community is not that bad if you think about it. You’re not responsible for cleaning up the mess of others – that’s a big advantage, but in a private bath dorms like Duren/San Jac, you’ll probably have to use the handicapped bath that’s available on each floor. Those are private.</p>

<p>4) Will there be enough room for my dorm accessories? I know the lounge is bigger than a normal dorm, but the space is also shared with 3 other people as opposed to a normal dorm with 2 people.</p>

<p>What sort of accessories do you have? Sorry, need more specifics</p>

<p>5) Will there be cable and internet? If so, What ResNet option should be enough for me per week- 5gb or 20 gb?</p>

<p>Internet is available, and how much bandwidth you need really depends on your downloading needs. There are other threads in the forum that address this.</p>

<p>6) Are there closets? If so, will they have to be shared with the other roomates, or will we each have our own closet space? Will there be desks and dressers? If so, how many?</p>

<p>Dressers are definitely available as are desks. 1 per person. You get this weird freestanding wardrobe thing.</p>

<p>7) I know beds vary from dorm to dorm at UT. Most dorms have XL twin sized beds, but some have regular twin sized beds. I don’t want to wait until the very last minute to shop for bedding, so which size should I buy?</p>

<p>Should all be XL except for the ones in Kinsolving and Littlefield, that is if they will do supplemental there.</p>

<p>8) This is unrelated to the housing situation, but should I bring my car on campus as a first year student? I’m from Houston (about 3-3.5 hrs away). At what point should it bring it? I was thinking 1st year, second semester. Will I even need it?</p>

<p>If you plan to make a lot of your own food, it is easier to have a car to do the food shopping. There are some grocery stores within walking/biking distance, and an HEB reachable by bus route. Parking on campus is kinda expensive, I’m not sure you’ll be able to get a parking space for just one semester living on campus. Having a car will make it easier to go out on the weekends though, unless you know someone else with one.</p>

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<p>@K1DUK- Oh okay. Well that would explain the delay… oh well. I like surprises lol.</p>

<p>@Why Two Kay & vacheespagnole- Thank you SO very much for answering the questions in depth.It eases my mind to know that it won’t be as bad as I thought. I really appreciate it.</p>

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<p>Are you saying you listed your roommate’s UT EID as your roommate preference and she listed yours and your preference choices all matched and UT Housing did not put you together when they assigned roomates? Seriously, that is not supposed to be their policy. What the heck happened? Did you ask?</p>

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<p>Yes… We both had each other’s UT EID as our roommate preference. We made sure all of our options were the same because we had been planning on rooming together since early fall. I called & asked housing about it & the lady said that it wouldn’t make a difference that she did her application earlier than mine, & that I would still be placed in supplemental housing because they process the applications in the order that they come in.
…& sure enough, my friend has received her roommate assignment & I haven’t.</p>

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<p>They say they’ll “try the best they can” to match people, but when you’ve applied that seriously late, it doesn’t end up working out.</p>

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<p>I just assumed that they would put me with her anyway which is why I waited so late so that I could weigh my options- living on or off campus. It was my mistake, so I can’t really complain, and I’m not-- just explaining the circumstance. It should be interesting to meet new people anyway.</p>

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<p>I don’t get howy ou got a supple housing before me… I applied April 1st and still haven’t received a supple housing contract… :(</p>

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<p>Thaisteak, you should seriously call. I believe they are looking for people to fill the supplemental spaces. I called earlier this month and they set me up with a supplemental contract right away.</p>

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<p>Why did you decide not to go with Dobie?</p>

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<p>yea thai, I applied for housing really late as well, and I got offered supplemental as soon as I called to ask a question about it.</p>

<p>Also, I have a question about supplemental. Will the desks they provide in supplemental have locks on them? Seeing as how I’ll have 3 roommates, I can foresee a lot of traffic in and out of my room, and I’ll be worried about theft.</p>

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<p>ThaiSteak- you should definitely call and ask them about that. I wasn’t offered a contract until I emailed them. They literally emailed me back immediately with the contract & the contract expired the same day.</p>

<p>Denumz- I decided not to go with Dobie because my parents thought it would be best to live on campus & I’ve also read some things about Dobie that I wasn’t too fond of. </p>

<p>–I have a question for anyone who can answer.
Does anyone know the dimensions of the Twin XL bed?
Is the height of the bed adjustable?
Will I be able to raise the bed with those bed risers?
How are the posts on the bed?</p>

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<p>@SweetTalk379

  1. [url=&lt;a href=“LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You”&gt;LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You]LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You, first link
  2. The beds have multiple “pins” on the posts so you can raise/lower the mattress
  3. Yes
  4. Wooden? Please clarify.</p>

<p>PS Dobie is on campus technically. It’s on the edge of the SW part. Close to PCL, Gregory Gym, Liberal Arts Six Pack, Business school</p>

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<p>Thanks. I know I’m asking a lot of questions. I’m just trying to get as much information as possible in order to plan before I move in on the 20th of August.</p>

<p>I guess what I was trying to ask was how the frame of the bed is made.
I’ve heard that a lot of the beds in Jester are attached to the wall, but since I’m I’ll be in a lounge, I’m assuming that my bed won’t be. I was just trying to get an idea of how the bed would be because I wanted to loft it and have decorative storage underneath. I’ll probably just need to actually see it to get specifics. Thanks for everyone’s input (:</p>

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<p>@SweetTalk379: No problem at all. I just forget sometimes that things like “beds attached to the wall in Jester” are not common knowledge for you freshmen.</p>

<p>But yeah, the beds that they have in supplemental are similar to the beds that they have in San Jac. Traditionally they can be lofted, but I’m not sure if you’ll have enough space in supplemental to do so.</p>

<p>Why Two Kay, any thoughts?</p>

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<p>There should be plenty of height, but I’m not sure of the style of beds. If they use the beds like in San Jac, you can loft them. If they are like the beds in Prather/Roberts/Brack. You can not. They’re both movable furniture, but one can be lofted and the other bunked. I would think they wouldn’t support bunking in the supplemental (since it’s so big anyway) so my guess is loftable beds. I would suggest calling and asking DHFS.</p>

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Hey! This is a really old thread and you’ve probably already graduated but can you tell me about your experience with the supplemental housing?? @SweetTalk379