<p>Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of living in the University Apartments sophomore year?</p>
<p>They are: Brackenridge, Colorado, and Gateway, located about 6 miles from the campus, but relatively cheap rent and have public transportation available.</p>
<p>Do the costs include electric and water bills, or do those get paid separately, and if so, how much is the cost?</p>
<p>Take a look at: [Division</a> of Housing and Food Service - University Apartments](<a href=“UHD Homepage | University Housing and Dining”>UHD Homepage | University Housing and Dining) You should be able to find the information you are looking for here.</p>
<p>These are shady, run down apartments (I know UTHousing will beg to differ) and I believe mostly intended for married students and grad students.</p>
<p>They are very cheap, but you can stay at somewhere like Longhorn Landing with the same kind of rent and be in a more undergrad-centered environment (still a shady one though).</p>
<p>What exactly do you mean by shady? Is there anywhere I will be able to stay year-round for four years, without being turned out on holidays? I would like to have a very close by place of my own during my stay at UT, but it seems as if everywhere is a bad choice.</p>
<p>The west campus area apartments are nice but, I suppose, expensive. I think it just depends on what you want to spend. </p>
<p>If you can picture yourself living in a coop, here is something to consider: You could get a single room in one of the coops and stay there for four years; the coops don’t turn people out over vacations or summers. Definitely inexpensive.
[Austin</a> Cooperatives - Coops in Austin, TX](<a href=“Austin Co-op Directory - List of Cooperatives in Austin, TX”>http://www.austincooperatives.coop/)</p>
<p>College Houses has a few singles available in several locations. If you want one of these, move quickly. ICC Coops only has doubles left.
Go to <a href=“http://www.collegehouses.coop/[/url]”>http://www.collegehouses.coop/</a> then click “FAQ” then click “Available Units”</p>
<p>Close places are great choices and you can stay there over the holidays, but for any apartment in West Campus expect to pay at least $500 per bedroom.</p>
<p>The coops are very cheap and usually include food, but you need to put in about 5 hours of labor a week in order to get it. However, the savings aren’t going to be super huge, and for the $50 or so a week that 5 hours gets you, you can get a nicer apartment.</p>
<p>Maybe you are comparing rent and food (three meals a day and unlimited open pantry) at a coop to rent alone at an apartment?</p>
<p>I think the coops are pretty darn cheap. But they are definitely not for everyone!</p>
<p>Ah, yes, I did not think about food. Odd that I didn’t because I love food!</p>
<p>Never mind, the coops will be a significant savings over any apartmemt, particularly one near campus.</p>
<p>In the coops you only need to do 4 hours of labor a week (2 hours in Opsis)
And meals are prepared three times a day 17 times a week and the kitchens are open 24/7.</p>
<p>If you do look into coops I would look into Halstead/Nueces/Laurel. These are part of the new ‘super coop’ and I believe Nueces and Laurel are geared towards upperclassmen and are apartment style living. </p>
<p>It is freaking cheap. I am paying less than half of what I paid for dorms. (I’m going to be living at Halstead)</p>
<p>It’s like two blocks from the drag, across from Dobie. Pretty darn close.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about the other coops.
I do know that most of them are located farther away a good four or so blocks from guadalupe since I had to trek up there to sign my contact.</p>
<p>There is also a coop north on guadalupe called Taos near the blockbuster that is worth looking into as well.</p>
<p>I thought Taos looked really good on the web site. Did you ever visit it?</p>
<p>Do any co-ops have single rooms? I don’t mind the labor at all, but I would like to have my own place, with a quiet studious environment, but not completely anti-social. 
Any ideas?</p>
<p>Also, what is the difference between College Houses and ICC Co-ops? The latter seems much cheaper, and just as near to the University of Texas at Austin as the former.</p>
<p>Which side (north, east, south, or west) or co-op is closer to Kinsolving, and about how long is a two-block walk?</p>
<p>The ICC coops are kinda run down, imo. Especially since they are actually houses. Also, they are really really small, like i think the biggest is 31 people. You have to go to a meeting and meet them to get accepted. (same for most of the college houses except for taos that i know of). I kinda associate ICC with party coops but I haven’t been to all of them.</p>
<p>The College Houses tend to have more people and have apartment/dorm-ish type buildings. But they also have some shady ones that could use some TLC. </p>
<p>The Taos coop is on the drag across from Duren.</p>
<p>And actually they cost about the same. For ICC the cost is: </p>
<p>"2009-2010 Academic Year</p>
<p>$659/month - Private Room
$529/month - Shared Room"</p>
<p>And for college houses for double the lowest is $466 and the highest is $582. And for singles it’s $763 - $659.</p>
<p>Which College Houses would you say are the most quiet and have a comparatively studious environment? I’d rather avoid the shady ones. Being nearby would also be nice, but there aren’t really any maps shown. Is any other College House as close by as Halstead?</p>
<p>see post #5</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The web sites for both college houses and icc feature maps that show where all of the houses are.</p>
<p>Wow, thank you. Taos looks stellar. It’s not one of the shady ones, I take it?</p>
<p>Also, would labor take into consideration someone’s inability to cook? :)</p>
<p>And one more question: the cost of meal plans (5 meals/week or 17 meals/week) is in addition to the cost of housing? Is it possible to use the 5 meals/week or not use a meal plan, even if the College House technically offers 17 meals/week? I would be spending most of my time on the UT campus, so 5 meals/week sounds way more convenient.</p>
<p>No it’s included, and you can’t get out of the cost I believe.</p>
<p>And believe me, you won’t be spending most of your time on UT’s campus. There just isn’t that much to do on campus that you would be there most of the time. Plus, the non-resident cost in the dining halls is outrageous ($8 for all you can eat).</p>
<p>True, but then the on-campus meal plan is rather nice for an on-the-go kind of person like me. Just one more question, I promise. ;)</p>
<p>Is it possible to live in a dorm for the fall and spring, but then immediately move into the College Houses after dorms close in the spring? This would technically be 10 days before the summer term actually starts, but I would have absolutely nowhere to go those 10 days. Surely they wouldn’t mind, even though technically I wouldn’t be choosing the “year round” option?</p>
<p>It will depend on whether or not the house you are moving into has an empty room then.</p>
<p>I think the odds are good that if you stay in the dorm until the last possible day allowed to stay in the dorm, that someone will have moved out of one of the rooms in the College Houses place you want to move into - or that the people at the College Houses house would work with you to help you find a place to stay during that interim time - maybe a different room than the one you would be in a week or two later when the summer term starts.</p>
<p>Remember too that once you have lived in Austin for a full school year, you won’t have that “no where to go” feeling; you might have a friend with an apartment with a couch you can stay for a while in a pinch. Or, in Austin, if you were desperate for a place to sleep at night, you could stay at the Hostelling International hostel for about $20 per night.</p>
<p>I think the odds are good that College Houses would work with you on this, though, especially if you were planning to move in one of the houses for the summer and the next school year, and really be a part of that house’s coop community.</p>