My daughter has had a couple of acceptances to U’s trickle in, but she obviously hasn’t auditioned yet, so not accepted to the music schools. I haven’t even looked to see when things are even possible, but I realized the non-music kids are probably signing up for housing while the music majors are sitting around waiting for auditions and then even longer for results.
At what point did your child register for housing so they didn’t have to wait until audition results and just be stuck with whatever dorm room was left? I know it’s a risk of a housing deposit but, in particular, I’m at least thinking about the top couple of schools on her list.
I remember this conundrum. Here is what we did:
For big Universities where there could be substantial walks and where you could make requests for housing (at least areas if not dorms), we bit the bullet and made a housing request and paid the fee.
For smaller LACs where there would not be issues in walking and housing seemed uniform, we did not. They all guaranteed housing - and I’m not sure we were even asked at some schools.
I can’t remember if I waited until after the pre-screenings results or not. But I know I did it by the Xmas holiday and I did pay housing fees at 2 schools - and as it turned out she did go to one of the schools.
Hope this helps.
Check with the schools of music at universities. In some cases, blocks of rooms are reserved for music majors, just because of this situation. And also check re housing deposits. Again, at some universities, they are fully refundable.
Can you register for housing without officially enrolling at a school?
We put down the deposit for housing before officially enrolling. Usually, universities don’t actually assign rooms until April or May, or even later. But your choice could be affected by when you put in your deposit. I would say that the best thing to do would be to contact the universities in question and find out what the policies are. Try speaking to someone in the music school admissions as well as someone in housing, as the housing people don’t always know what is going on!
FYI - all the universities guaranteed housing for freshmen. My concern wasn’t IF she would get housing. It was WHERE she’d get housing. The school that’s she ultimately attended said she would get housing and could wait until after the audition. However they would still take housing assignments based on when the deposit was paid. So she would be on the bottom of the list for requested housing if she waited. With a D I didn’t like the idea of her walking long distances at night after rehearsals. So I decided to pay the deposit.
Still it’s a good idea to call. You never know unless you ask. And different schools may have different policies.
And there was no problem giving them money before enrolling! They were happy to take my money regardless of her enrolling.
Oh my gosh, we hadn’t even though of this! Its going to be a long few months…
DS is a sophmore at IU. We also had this problem. I had read lots about this on the IU portion of CC. The music buildings are all in the SE corner of campus. The non-music students all want to get into McNutt which is the NW part of campus. This is where the craziness seems to exist in terms of the first come first serve. It appears that the SE neightborhood is the least desirable for non-music students. So, if your daughter is okay living in the SE neighborhood, you should be okay. In fact, most music students end up in the SE neighborhood, specifically Read, which is right across from the music buildings. DS’s first choice was Residence Scholars in Ashton. He submitted his application 25 minutes before the May 1 deadline and got his first choice. If you do decide to pay the deposit, part of it is refundable. PM me if you want more details.
How interesting–! My daughter looked at IU and we even gave an early deposit (because of the hype over housing) but no one told us the valuable information BCviolinmom is reporting here. When my daughter declined IU they promptly returned the housing deposit, which was a relief. But it looks like she may not have needed to send it in the first place.