I have applied for housing at UIUC and I have just received a letter from the University Housing urging me to buy linen from them since their beds are different from the others. I wanted to ask if buying residence hall is beneficial or wether it would be more convenient for me to buy them myself. If it is beneficial to buy it directly from the university what pack should I buy?
It is a fair deal, considering the convenience factor, but you can definitely save a few $ by doing the legwork yourself. The beds are not standard twin size, but it’s not like the actual size is a CIA secret or anything, they are just longer than standard twins. If I recall the mailing, they also try to sell you pillows and comforters and such. These are all overpriced compared to what you can find yourself, but not by a large margin. You are paying a small premium to get it all done in one place. Totally up to you whether the convenience is worth the premium. A LOT of freshman parents use the service.
We didn’t use the service since there’s no way to determine its quality before purchase. And, what happens if you like some parts of a package, and not others? How do they determine the component cost of the returned items? It may be convenient, if you like everything once you get it, but we shopped at Bed, Bath and Beyond near us in Chicago, and they ship the things to the Bed, Bath and Beyond store in Champaign, where you can pick all the stuff up once you get there (this assumes you’ll have a car during move in, of course). Whether you use BBB or Walmart, Target or whatever. They’ve got huge malls with everything you’ll need not far from campus (4 miles). Good luck.