As Thanksgiv-ing approaches and students get hit with a second wave of midterms and papers, they may feel completely swept up in current projects. But many students are forced to look past the next few weeks of this semester as they stress and scramble to set up housing arrangements for next year.
Rumors that fly around Grounds regarding the difficulty of finding housing have led many to believe that come winter break, there may be no options left. Although that perfect four bedroom apartment on 14th Street may have been snatched up the minute it was open for signing early this October, many options for student housing do exist throughout the year.
Because of differing deadlines for off- and on-Grounds lease signing, deciding whether or not to apply for University housing remains one of the biggest problems for many students. Although the recent switch to a Nov. 1 deadline for on-Grounds housing closed the deadline gap to some extent, students applying to be Resident Assistants or live on the Lawn will have to take a gamble and wait to hear back from later deadlines.
"I'm considering applying to live on the Lawn, but it's difficult to find roommates who can deal with the uncertainty," third-year College student Diana El-Osta said. "Right now I'm in the process of finding roommates who will commit, knowing that I'm not sure what's going to happen."
Third-year College student Baddr Shakhsheer said he had difficulties procuring back-up housing while waiting to hear back about his RA application last year, but that he made sure he had other options open.
Baddr said that while waiting to hear back about the RA position, most opt to also apply for "on-Grounds housing because by then the off-Grounds housing is limited."
El-Osta has also realized the benefit of seeking out other housing options in case she applies for the Lawn and is not accepted.
"Another thing I am considering is being an RA again because the timing works out better with when I would find out about the Lawn" in February, she said.
Although the various deadlines for on-Grounds options often correspond well, juggling the possibility of on-Grounds housing opportunities with off-Grounds options housing causes problems for some students. Fourth-year Commerce student Matt Bulloch, who currently lives on the Lawn, claimed that the relatively late date for the Lawn application caused some concern about his living arrangements, but that he knew he could find somewhere suitable to live.
"It was unsettling not knowing exactly where I was going to live, and was kind of gutsy turning down places I knew I could live [and] I felt bad not committing," he said. "But there really are lots of places to live in Charlottesville, so I didn't stress out too much."
Felicia Alsop, an employee at Wade Apartments, emphasized that despite the myth that no off-Grounds housing options exist after early fall, a wide range of housing choices still are available throughout the spring semester. Wade Apartments offers housing that is often popular with students in areas such as Jefferson Park Avenue and Wertland Street.
"We certainly still have openings throughout the spring semester," Alsop said. "We started signing Oct. 23, and on Nov. 18 we will start signing our smaller two-bedrooms, one-bedrooms and efficiencies."
Alsop also said that although Wade has a relatively later signing time than some of the other large rental companies in Charlottesville, there are no plans to change the signing date because of a perceived student desire to sign early.
"Our larger apartments go quicker, and we even had people camp out for those," Alsop said. "We try to keep up with the demand, and students keep coming to knock on our doors so early in the year."
In an attempt to rectify the mismatch between the earlier off-Grounds and on-Grounds housing signing times, the deadline to apply to live on-Grounds was moved to an earlier date this year, and students were notified of acceptance by Nov. 5. Additionally, housing is guaranteed to all second-year students who apply to live on-Grounds by the Nov. 1 deadline of their first year, according to the University Housing Division Web site. Students currently living in upper-class on-Grounds housing are also guaranteed housing if they fill out an intent form expressing their desire to stay for another year by Nov. 1.
Despite the positive aspects of these changes, some students argue that this only makes the problem worse than before.
"I've never had any problems with on-Grounds housing," third-year College student Derek Miller said, "but I don't think that the earlier deadline helps anything. It only forces people to decide earlier when they don't even have a feel for what they want to do yet. It kind of creates the same problems as off-Grounds housing."
Like Miller, Shakhsheer said that while making decisions about living arrangements as an upperclassman can be difficult, he thinks first years are in the toughest position.
"I don't understand how [first years] are supposed to know where they are going to live when they haven't even taken their first final," Shakhsheer said.
For those students who can decide early about off-Grounds housing, however, the largest challenge can be finding a perfect place. Sometimes that means camping out, while other times it may be as easy getting a lease passed down.
"It wasn't a problem at all this year because I'm living with friends in a place that's always been passed down from older girls in our sorority," third-year College student Christy Houston said.
Ideal situations such as this, however, clearly don't always happen. Bulloch pointed out that making the decision about what he wanted to do was the hardest part, but that he decided it was worth it to give up a perfectly good option of living with his friends to risk being accepted to live on the Lawn.
"I knew I might not live with my best friends [if I applied for the Lawn], but I knew I could find somewhere decent to live," he said. "It wasn't like I was going to have to sleep outside in a tent the whole year"
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