Colleges with 3 years of on-campus housing

College Search & Lists
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D is considering transferring from her current school and is looking for the following:

  1. 3 (or 4) year housing requirement.
  2. mid-tier schools east of the Mississippi with around 4K - 20k students. (Ranked around 50-150)
  3. Communications major.
  4. friendly liberal students
  5. fun social life. (Greek life is fine as long as it doesn’t dominate social scene)
  6. not super rural unless it’s a great college town

D is afraid it will be really hard to meet people as a junior if everyone has moved off campus. Cost is not an issue at this point as we are just trying to get an initial list started.

Edited to add: I guess it doesn’t have to be a “requirement” but maybe somewhere that it’s an option to live on campus for 3 years.

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Some of these schools may be of interest: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/most-on-campus.

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3

Here’s another as well - which uses the list you provided.

I looked up the first entrant - which was sewanee - and it requires all four years.

Seems like these schools are smaller and some are super rural - but what you want and what there is may be somewhat limited.

I understand the concern - I imagine this is hard for any kid who does two years at a community college, etc.

Good luck.

30 Most Exciting Colleges Where Practically All Students Live on Campus (onlinecollegeplan.com)

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I’d recommend researching the schools the your D is interested in because even though schools may require or encourage students to live on campus, not all of them guarantee or provide transfer housing, either for the first year or subsequent years.

For example, this year Notre Dame didn’t guarantee on campus housing for transfer students. Not sure if they have in prior years.

Boston College will guarantee transfer housing for the first year. But then many juniors live off campus because 4 year guaranteed housing is only offered to certain students.

Vanderbilt now requires 4 years in campus and guarantees transfer housing.

Franklin & Marshall requires 4 year on campus housing and provides transfer housing for all years attended.

5

My child chose to live in an apartment complex popular with students and did roommate matching. Its a 4 bedroom 2 bath apartment so he automatically had 3 new people he got to know. The apartment complex hosts many social events so its very easy to meet people.

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6

Rather than mention my opinion or 3rd-party my son’s thoughts, here is what the Fiske Guide says about U Dayton in regards to some of your questions:

So far, this all fairly describes my sophomore son’s experiences at Dayton. Every time I visit him, his friends seem more enthused to see me than he does. And when his friend’s parents visit, he’s always invited to join them. He has a great little friend group, and he’s in a couple of study groups. Overall, to this parent and my son, it seems like a very friendly campus.

Fiske rates UD with 3/5 for Academics, 3/5 for quality of life, and 5/5 for Social experience.

Also according to Fiske, 12% of males and 20% of females go Greek. My son says the Greek organizations organize some activities but there are many more social events that don’t involve them than those that do.

~8600 undergraduates.

Not ranked in T50, so that probably eliminates it from your consideration.

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Well GW does , and even requires 3 years of “on campus” housing, but its right in the middle of the city, and its not inexpensive. just throwing that out that. undergrad its a bit over 10K students.

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8

Four years of on campus housing is typical for rural, LACs, but not as common at larger schools where students often live “off” for junior an senior year. If your daughter would consider UMass I believe about 50% of juniors live on campus although I don’t know if it is guaranteed (at a recent tour the guide - a junior living on campus - said it is unusual for it to be an issue as a many juniors live off).

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If the concern she has is finding friends as a transfer student I would instead look for universities that take a good number of transfer students and have programs in place for them.

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I agree that this is more important than finding on campus housing. Schools with larger number of transfers often have orientation programs for their transfer students to help them integrate better into the school.

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11

I actually meant over 50 In the rankings, I just changed my original post to be more clear, definitely not looking for tip-top schools.

Dayton is actually on a preliminary list I just sent to my D yesterday. My S22 and I just visited and really liked it. I’m just not sure if it’s quirky enough for her but my son is definitely applying. Your comments about the friendliness of the students are definitely helpful. She’s definitely not a social justice warrior but has a couple more tattoos and piercings than most of the kids at her current school. So although she has a nice group of friends, she’s having trouble widening her circle.

Thanks for the suggestion.

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12

UMass is on the list for her to look at.

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My son says there are more quirky students at UD than it seems at first glance. I always see groups of quirky students when we walk near the Art Street dorm/complex. It houses only a few dozen students, but it seems a lot of the artsy + quirkier students congregate around that area. The Art Street Complex is for upperclassmen and might be the place for your D if she chooses UD.
https://udayton.edu/studev/housing/residential_facilities/art-street.php

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14

What is your D’s current school like and why does she want to leave it? Don’t want to suggest something that is just more of the same.

What is she looking for besides the things you listed? Big school? Little school? Urban? Seems like she is looking for “quirky” too?

Communications is a common major so that shouldn’t be hard to find.

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