I recently received a brochure from Bama and I’m confused about the one section. It says those whole submit the housing application before Feb. 1 are able to participate in housing selection. What about the people who submit the housing app after the date? Are they able to pick their housing? Also, if one is in the honors college, how do they choose the honors dorm and can they pick to live in the honors dorm if hey submit after that date? Thanks
People who submit after the date do not select their housing. UA Housing will assign rooms to those students, but they do ask for preferences. So, for example, if you wanted honors housing, you could specify that, and they’d try to put you in honors housing. Same for traditional vs. suite style rooms. However, Housing can only assign you to rooms that are left over after those who deposited in time to participate in room selection have chosen their rooms, so you may not get what you want. It’s been 5 years since my daughter participated in freshman room selection, and I know some things have changed since then, so I hope someone who has been through the process more recently will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that even if you deposit after the specified date, if you find a roommate who is participating in room selection and can “pull you in” to his or her room, you can end up with a room during room selection. If you’re picky about where you live and with whom, your best bet is to deposit early so you can participate in room selection and have an early pick.
When my daughter was a high school senior, we made the deposits in October even though she didn’t decide to attend Alabama until the spring. I figured there was a 50% chance she’d end up at Bama, having honors housing in the suite style dorms was important to her, and we could afford to walk away from the enrollment deposit (most of the housing deposit is refundable) if she didn’t end up choosing Bama. Lots of folks make that same decision, and others choose not to. Everyone’s situation is different.