Choose Your Dorms: Residential Rental vs University Housing

This is an interesting question that suddenly popped up.

As a rotational player, Residential Rentals allow me to more easily move the sims out and then not hop through some loopholes to have them stay there while I rotate away. Plus it allows me to move multiple sims there. With University Housing, I have to move one sim there, then rotate back to the family they moved out from, and move the other sim there.
Plus I can rebuild my own dorm experiences there!

Still, University Housing is its own game mechanic of itself. Plus it fills the empty playable-sim slots with roommates...

I guess I do Residential Rental in some saves and University Housing in other saves...

I think both and there's some flexibility in it.

For storytelling, I usually my my freshmen sims stay in university housing (dorms) just so they can get to meet other sims. Because the university housing basically pairs them with a roommate and prefills all the other bedrooms. Now once my sim has completed a few courses, maybe has a boyfriend/girlfriend or wants to be able to cook, I plan to move them off campus to a residential rental to finish off and graduate.

I tried to have my young group of students live in campus housing, but they were consistently late for class, it was a nightmare. I never really had this problem when they lived in the dorm. (Okay, upon occasion one Sim might drag their feet.) It's dorm all the way for any future kids. I did have my most recent college graduate pursue his degree from home, but then again, he was a very young Teen, who happens to be a genius and managed to graduate early. His parents (having lived on campus as older teens) were very reluctant to expose their thirteen-year-old to the antics of older Sims.

Mine is a bit complicated.
I created a prep-school dorm that I use for my high-school students to rotate through, but it is also a rotation point for them to go on to Uni as well. It's really a residential lot that is located in Copperdale.


I have six students that attend high school until they meet the requirements I set for their Uni majors.
I send them to Uni in groups of three, for two terms, and then I send them back to the prep dorm and rotate in the next three for two terms. Usually alternating between Britechester and Foxbury.


So where do Rental Units come in?
I am considering having my sims lighten up on course loads and going to Uni for three years instead of two.
First year: On Campus dorm
Second Year: Off Campus dorm
Third Year: On Campus apartment.

You see, the problem I have with Uni, over all the terms, is a lot of their dormie friends, sims that I've completely made over, tend to leave the dorm between terms and are hardly ever seen again. I have to group them in clubs and make the hang out at the student commons just to see them, or invite the club to the dorm.

If their final year is in this soon-to-be apartment building, I can assign all my favorite dormies to the other rooms.
And I can also have a change of pace from the usual dorm game play for their final year.

"BreeSasha;c-18328126" wrote:
I think both and there's some flexibility in it.

For storytelling, I usually my my freshmen sims stay in university housing (dorms) just so they can get to meet other sims. Because the university housing basically pairs them with a roommate and prefills all the other bedrooms. Now once my sim has completed a few courses, maybe has a boyfriend/girlfriend or wants to be able to cook, I plan to move them off campus to a residential rental to finish off and graduate.

This. Also sims with dependants/family/pets/mature students.

I'm hoping that DU combined with FR will add a "Students Only" rule.

Universal Dorms though I rarely play the University Feature.

i switched all student housing to regular lots when I realized my game loads faster with not needing to spawn endless npc roommates.

"LeucosiaX;c-18330648" wrote:
i switched all student housing to regular lots when I realized my game loads faster with not needing to spawn endless npc roommates.

That is a valid option too...

I have been thinking about this as well. Being able to move in and out when we want and being able to cook are advantages. But I need to be able to play around with the pack first before I can say which would be best suited for students.

Without having played with For Rent, I think I'm going leave the tower top dorms as dorms/university housing, and then change the two "houses" on the campuses to Residential Rentals (and re-build them) and then just figure out a way to limit them to University students (Probably by just seeding them with Young Adults I've enrolled in University.)

Since I only play with University once every few generations, taking the time to set it up before I use it won't be too big of a deal (probably.)