Apply for student housing before accepting admission?
Our senior has been accepted at 3 of the colleges he applied to but he is still waiting to hear back from 3 others -- we assume that will happen later in March. In addition we still need to visit two of the 3 colleges he has been accepted to, and we're doing that on Spring Break first week of April. So he hasn't decided yet which college he wants to attend, and probably won't until after the April visits. In the meantime he has been getting emails from the colleges that have accepted him, telling him to apply for student housing now! I've heard that one of the schools, Humboldt State, has a shortage of student housing, and the other colleges stress that early birds get better choices. I'm worried we should be reserving housing now, even though he hasn't decided yet if he wants to go there. But I don't even know if we can do that if he hasn't accepted the admission offer yet. Or is the student housing thing generally OK to put off until late April when he decides which college? Or do people accept at more than one college so you can apply for housing early? I am not sure how this works!
Parent Replies
Why not ask the colleges?
At Humboldt I think he's guaranteed housing if he's in one of the PBLCs (small learning communities for freshmen in STEM majors). If not I still think applying for housing in April should be fine. Note, the Canyon dorms may be better than the Hill dorms (Sunset and Redwood) which are crowded and lack common area. Don't request a triple in the Hill dorms even though it's cheaper - the rooms are really small.