Hello! I am currently in a long distance relationship with my girlfriend, she lives in Africa. She is applying for a Stanford scholarship where they will pay for your flight and courses. She will get an MBA after she is done and sent back to Africa if she is accepted. She has a four year degree in IT, and one thesis away from her masters in international trade. So basically it is my dream to live with her.
I have only taken one college class which didn’t count and I dropped out some years ago. Can we live in a dorm together while she is there or do we need to find another way?
Your post is a little confusing. Is she going to be attending Stanford as an undergrad or as a graduate student? Or are you saying that you are attending Stanford as well? Or did you mean that you will be working in the area and/or attending school at another university or college and want to live together?
You and/or your girlfriend should probably contact Stanford directly in order to get the most accurate answer to your concerns. Phone numbers, email addresses, and contact info for Stanford housing are available online at https://rde.stanford.edu/contact-us.
Housing contact info:
R&DE Student Housing
565 Cowell Lane
Stanford, CA 94305
Phone: 650-725-1600
https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing/contact-us
https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing
studenthousing@stanford.edu
Thank you! I heard an MBA from Stanford is at the graduate level? I am not attending there, I only taken single college classes but I never went for a college degree at all. I am currently going for a Cisco certification, but my girlfriend wants meto get a formal education sometime when we get money.
You probably won’t be allowed in a dorm, but you could check out married students’ housing. I know that in many universities you don’t have to be actually married to live in MSH.
If they had MSH that would be nice. I think I am going to try to find a decent job quickly for an apartment if she is accepted.
Correct. An MBA is considered a graduate degree in the US. So your girlfriend will be a grad student, not an undergrad. I highly recommend that she contacts Stanford housing directly with her questions. From a cursory glance at their website, it appears that housing is not necessarily guaranteed for grad students for the entire time they are students at Stanford…it really depends.
For example:
https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing/assignment-guarantee-and-priorities
It appears that you are guaranteed housing for your 1st year of grad school assuming you submit your request for housing by the lottery deadline.
This part of their website explains enrollment requirements & eligibility for grad student housing. It is hard to tell whether they allow unmarried couples to live together in grad student housing. You or your girlfriend will need to contact them directly about this.
https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing/enrollment-requirements-and-eligibility-graduate-housing
Something to keep in mind re: off campus housing:
The San Francisco Bay Area has some of the most expensive rent prices in the entire US. So expect some sticker shock if you end up having to live off campus. And if you do have to live off campus, do NOT live in East Palo Alto. It’s a VERY dangerous neighborhood.
If she’s getting an MBA then she wouldn’t be living in the regular undergrad dorms anyway. Her choice would be graduate student housing or off-campus housing.
Most universities have an option for graduate students to live with partners and families, but because the bigger apartments are usually in higher demand, they’re harder to get and sometimes universities require formalized relationships for you to live together. For example, at Columbia, in order to get the bigger apartments with a partner, you either have to be married or in a registered domestic partnership OR be able to prove that you’ve shared a household before for at least six months (you can use joint bank account statements, a mortgage, lease, etc., to fulfill this requirement). Looks like Stanford has something similar.
Graduate and undergraduate students who are married or in a domestic partnership with a partner who will co-occupy an apartment with them at least 50% of each week are eligible to live in Couples without Children housing. At Stanford, a domestic partnership is defined as an established, long-term partnership between two people with an exclusive mutual commitment in which the partners share the necessities of life and ongoing responsibility for their mutual welfare. - [url=<a href=“https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing/couples-without-children-housing%5DSource%5B/url”>https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing/couples-without-children-housing]Source[/url]
It doesn’t matter whether you are a student or not. You can still live with her. Also, there’s always the option of renting an apartment off-campus. Then you can live with whoever you want.
If she is into this idea, she can rent an off-campus apartment and you can live there…but you will have to be able to pay your share of rent.