UT Housing no longer offering housing contracts...transfers beware...

<p>I emailed housing today, asking them if I will be receiving a contract after someone from housing told me a few weeks ago that I would surely receive one shortly after admissions. I'm a transfer student and was notified of my acceptance over a month ago, so I was worried and emailed housing. </p>

<p>Their reply:
We will offer contracts in application date order as we receive cancellations. At this time we are not able to offer contracts. We will continue to offer when getting cancellations through check-in, but cannot guarantee housing. Thank You!
Housing Reservations Team
The University of Texas at Austin
Division of Student Affairs </p>

<p>This really IRKS me because they should have said something earlier! I feel trapped, like there is no where I can live now. Does anyone know of any kind of on campus housing available at this time? Its extremely late... and I am not from Austin, so living at home is not an option. I also don't have any roommates lined up for a house or apartment, so unless there is something very cheap, I won't get a house or apartment.</p>

<p>Help please?! I can't wait the entire summer through the beginning of move-in to see if I MIGHT receive a contract. I'm freaking out now... I honestly thought i'd get a contract, since I applied first week of January. I suppose not! Sorry for anyone else who was expecting a contract, but chances are extremely slim now...</p>

<p>You will have to get an apartment.</p>

<p>Don’t freak out. You don’t have to have a roommate lined up in order to get an apartment. My best friend is a HUGE procrastinator and she just now realized that the dorms are too expensive so she went up to austin this week to find an apartment. She had no roommate - since I already have somewhere to live - and got a place in Jefferson West for $457 a month or something like that (not more than $500) in a 4 bedroom apartment (total 6 ppl, at the moment only 3 and you do not have to pay more if the other rooms are not filled). The thing is its a 12 month lease so I dont know if you are looking for that or want the hassle if you are not staying for the summer.</p>

<p>I am sure the private dorms are not filled yet, either.</p>

<p>what if you haven’t received your contract and your roommate or preferred roommate puts you on his application? How does that go?</p>

<p>yall both have to have contracts to signup</p>

<p>“yall both have to have contracts to signup” didn’t exactly understand what you were saying</p>

<p>what I meant to ask is if your roommate puts your UT EID on his application and they haven’t given you a contract yet? Now since your roommate has put you down in a shared dorm (not private or single), that would mean he would not live single and you would have to live with him somehow. But since you haven’t received your contract, how would you make your next step…call them? just go in the dorm and stay? will they eventually give you a contract??</p>

<p>in order to room with your roommate, you must put down each other’s UT EID’s in the contract to prove that both sides agree with rooming together. Because you don’t have a contract you can’t put your roommate’s EID. also, you and your roommate must put down the same 5 dorm preferences in the same order. That would be impossible since you haven’t gotten your contract yet.</p>

<p>so what on God’s earth do I do?</p>

<p>find someone in the same position as you, the off-campus apartments aren’t that bad; i’ve heard of some as close as 5 minutes (walking) away, which helps</p>

<p>For those who want dorms: If Dobie and Castilian do not currently look like good possibilities, is Goodall Wooten still an option?</p>

<p>Check craigslist and hey longhorn for apartment ideas. Don’t panic.</p>

<p>I thought if someone who has already received a contract puts me on his contract, that would automatically guarantee me a dorm even though I haven’t received a contract yet, since he’ll eventually need someone to live with ?</p>

<p>You guys are not ANSWERING this question but keep replying about other possibilities…</p>

<p>if you don’t have a contract, you can’t live on-campus, even if your roommate has one. both sides need to have the contract. that’s why it’s called a contract.</p>

<p>This really sucks for the transfer students. I mean it’s kind of late to notify them that they might not receive a housing contract.</p>

<p>Yes, but at a school where only 20% of the student body can possibly live on campus, and most of these are going to be freshmen, and when all returning residents who want to remain are guaranteed space, you really have to be proactive and check out the situation, rather than assuming you’re going to be fine.</p>

<p>Yes it really does suck, but I guess thats what the private dorms and apartments are for… I can’t do an apartment this year, but I have applied at Dobie. For anyone interested, they marked down their prices. It doesn’t seem so bad… but I wish there was some kind of broadcast so that students who are still expecting contracts can make alternative housing plans!</p>

<p>like i said in my other posts, i live at castilian now and will also be there next year. its clean, its setup so you meet LOTS of people, the staff is really nice and you feel like you belong – hard to explain that but its got a better feel to it really. also closer to everything than other off campus dorms</p>

<p>Is Dobie friendly? Like, I mean meeting new people and stuff like that… I’m going to be a transfer student and I really want to meet new people and living in dobie scares me that I won’t be meeting that many people… bleh</p>

<p>I’m a quiet person so I didn’t meet friends at dobie other than my roommate, but it seemed like everyone got along and became friends. I mean huge long tables filled up with people who knew each other and it can’t be possible that they were all friends prior to dobie considering most of the cafeteria was this way. So yes I would say that your chances of meeting people are pretty good, especially people on your floor. I was friendly with people but we weren’t friends.</p>

<p>try calling up UT food and housing services. I did that after an email i sent to them was ignored, and they offered me supplemental housing. that’s where they turn a study into a temporary dorm room for you to live in until a real dorm room becomes available. these rooms, im told, house up to like 3-4 students, so they’re much bigger than a regular room, and on top of that, you earn like 5% credit towards your housing bill (if i read it right). I was at UT the other day for orientation and visited the food and housing building to take care of something, and i overheard the lady at the front desk offering someone supplemental housing, so there’s still some available!</p>

<p>and another option i can suggest is living in a co-op. according to the numbers they’re quoting, theyre about 3 grand less than the dorms. they have various locations all near campus. check them out [ICC</a> Austin: Affordable Co-operative Student Housing](<a href=“Affordable Student Housing - ICC Austin”>http://www.iccaustin.coop/)</p>

<p>Don’t live in a co-op in Austin. Really. They might be good elsewhere in the world, but in Austin they are just… disgusting. All of the ones I have seen look like run down slums. Overgrown with plants, wall paint cracking, windows with scratches, etc.</p>

<p>Off-campus dorms (Dobie, Castilian) and apartments (even the small, lower quality ones) are WORLDS better than living in a co-op. And some can be had for similar prices once you factor in the food and the fact that you won’t have to “work” to live somewhere.</p>

<p>Jeptha, when did you apply for housing?</p>