<p>@Bennie - I can tell you the rationale from our family’s, perspective, although I’m sure reasons are different for everyone. We have a contract at Scottish Rite for D. We visited Austin in March 2013 for Explore UT and saw a lot of the on campus dorms then. We went back down in July 2013 and visited several private dorms including University Towers, Harden House, and Scottish Rite. D fell in love with SRD, and I like it a lot from a parent perspective. There’s more personal attention because it’s a smaller group (~350 girls I think). Very nice facilities, lots of onsite programming, more of a home-like feel than the campus dorms, in my opinion. I liked the idea of D having the opportunity for that community amidst the very large UT student population, e.g., it would be less likely for her to slip through the cracks. I’ve also heard some stories about on-campus housing gone awry from friends who have older kids at UT currently or in the past. I figured with a small private dorm, D won’t be at risk of that. D may move somewhere else after freshman year, but I thought for her first year away from home, SRD was a better option than on-campus. The cost is virtually identical as well.</p>