Re: Why not able to stay in the same dorm for the second semester?
All the dorms and on campus houses are set as the University Housing venue type. Unless you sign up immediately right after you get your end of term grades via the prompt, then the game makes you move out. It's the way that venue type is designed to work. There is a way around it by setting the venue type to residential. Apartment for the dorms or Residential for the houses. Then you don't have to move out at end of term. But you do lose the other play features of the UH venue type like automatically getting roommates.
If you do want to change the venue type, then you need to do it before you move any sims in. It's not much of a problem when you change it from UH to residential but if you want to change it back to UH, it has to be vacant with no sims living there.
I enjoyed playing the dorms with the UH venue type except, like you, I don't like the automatic move out feature. For one sim, it's not that much trouble, but when you play an 8 sim household, it becomes a real hassle to get them all back into the dorm. Plus, I like to send my sims on a mini vacation between terms to give me a break from the university grind and I couldn't do that without moving them out. So, I changed the venue type to one of the residential venue types so I can play the way I want to.
Hope this helps.
