Many of the top research universities have Some on-campus housing or very near campus housing for graduate students. Not enough for all grad-students but enough to get them started in a new area.

If the college is a highly ranked research university, then there is likely to be some level of near or on-campus housing for graduate students that is controlled by the university.

MIT has a Lot of that. So does Harvard and Stanford and Caltech. Not enough for every grad student, but sufficient stock to help those relocating to the area.

Indeed, MIT has several apartment buildings for married students with families.

I moved into Student House (henceforth the house) at the beginning of my sophomore year and stayed there through the end of my college career. In the course of those 3 years in the house I not only got to experience life in the house as a member, but also as the house Vice President and later the house President. For the short answer -- it was a fun and excellent training in social living, with a real sense of shared responsibility and trust between the house members. I would certainly live in the house again if I could somehow find myself back at MIT and in college. For the details, read on.

Located at 111 Bay State Rd., Boston, Student House is a coed MIT Independent Living Group (ILG). ILGs are considered off-campus housing, but they are not Greek. The house historically provides some of the cheapest housing at MIT, and it is actually the product of an independent cooperative for financially needy MIT students. During my time there, rent fluctuated between $370-$400 per month. Having heard about this from a friend who was already living there, I visited the house in the spring of my freshman year to check it out. I have to admit I was expecting to walk into something worse than a dorm -- I mean, cheaper typically implies diminished quality. I may even have been ready for an encounter with some rodents, such details escape me. What I remember clearly is walking into an elegant and well kept house right in the heart of Boston's back bay, just north of Kenmore Square. I was dazzled, and immediately knew that I was going to move in.

The house has a kitchen in the basement, a game room/lounge and a dining room on the first floor, a library on the second floor, and 16 rooms scattered across the basement to the 4th floor. I may err a bit on these specifics but I believe these 16 rooms are divided into 3 triple-occupant rooms, 8 doubles, and 5 singles.

Assignment into a single, double, or triple occupant room is based on a points system. You earn 1 point for the semester if you live in a single-occupant room, 2 points for living in a double, and three points for living in a triple. Your points accumulate for the duration of your stay in the house, so for example if you lived with two room-mates (in a triple) for 2 straight semesters you garner 6 points. At the beginning of each semester, everybody fills out their rooming preferences. Assignments are then made preferentially starting with the person with the most points, ending with the person with the least points. This system was embraced by all during my time, though it is clear that a new member basically has very limited rooming choice. It is rather easy to turn this to your advantage though, with some patience. When I moved into the house I stayed in a triple for 3 straight semesters (it isn't hard to get into a triple) and those 9 points that I earned were enough to keep me in a single for my final three semesters. I may have been lucky because I moved in with several of my friends and we shared the same triple, but you can make something similar work for you if you build your team.

The house is officially a dry house (no alcohol in the house), and the house Resident Assistant (RA) enforces it. This translates to no alcohol in public places, since nobody bursts into your room to see what you are up to. Well, unless you are *that guy who plays loud music at 5am on a Thursday morning because you are starting your weekend early. House members respect the alcohol and noise rules. That said, there was maybe just one or two teetotallers in the house during my time there -- what am I saying? Of course I am not saying anything. While you are unlikely to throw a big party at the house, its location is such that majority of the MIT fraternities, Kenmore Square bars, and even some Boston University fraternities are barely 5-10 minutes away. Somehow, despite the tiring travails of being an MIT student, I regularly made use of this locational advantage with many house mates as well as friends from campus who came to hang out at the house before heading out and about in Boston.

I know there is a looming question, "What makes the house such a cheap living option?" There are several factors, for example I believe the house pays less for insurance since it is a dry house. The house is also owned by the MIT Student House Corporation which operates it as a non-profit (I believe this lowers Uncle Sam's annual check from the house). I speculate that the corporation maintains some kind of endowment fund to subsidize costs. What I know for sure that contributes to the lower living cost is the fact that house members run the house, and I mean this in the absolute sense. There is no cook for the house, but dinner is served Sunday through Thursday. There are no dedicated cleaners, but toilets and common areas are cleaned twice a week. The house members make this happen. At the beginning of every semester, each member is assigned (by lottery, if no decision is reachable straight up) either a cleaning or cooking duty. If you are a cleaner, you are expected to maintain the general cleanliness of your assigned area through the week. If you are a cook, you get to prepare dinner for the house with a partner on one of the five days that dinner is served. Each person also completes 12 "house hours" in the course of every semester. This is time that you can spend fixing something around the house, for example; painting a wall, replacing broken bulbs, etc. There are really no restrictions on what you can do for house hours.

Personally, living in such a small group and knowing that, for example, everyone is showing up for dinner and they are all counting on me to make it happen every Tuesday night, or they count on me to maintain the cleanliness of the house library which we all use every evening -- it is these sensations that built in me a strong sense of mutual responsibility and expectations. I quickly learned to get my part done in time, [and/because] everyone else does their part in making your life easy in the house. There is the occasional person who moves in and can't live in such a system for any of many good reasons, and they normally move on. Of course there are the occasional bad weeks when everyone has midterms and what not, and generally the in-charge(s) are fellow students and they understand.

Begs the question, who's in charge? The house president runs house meetings and is also in charge of external relations. For example she/he represents the house in the FSILG (Fraternities, Sororities and Independent Living Groups) council as well as communicating with the FSILG office which frequently needs updates on members and calendar of planned house events. The vice president is probably the most important person. He/she runs the house internally by organizing the duty rosters and doing occasional rounds to ensure that everyone is doing their job. There is also a treasurer who collects rent and runs the house finances, a steward in charge of stocking the house food supplies (oh did I mention breakfast is not served but the house provides cereal, eggs, bread, etc that you can use to make yourself breakfast or packed lunch?), a sports chair who organizes the house teams to play intramural sports, a social chair who masterminds social events like the semesterly formal. There is an active MIT Student House Alumni Corporation that organizes one event (think a corn maze tour, or a dinner/evening out at Endicott house) to interact with the incumbent members each semester. The president of the alumni corporation shows up in house meetings every once in a while with stories and photos of times gone.

Culturally, the house kind of morphs as residents come and go, which is both good and bad. Good in the sense that you can make the house what you like when you move in, and maybe bad because having a distinct character is enviable! This sounds a bit cliche, but the best part of living in the house for me was the people. When I moved in, the house had maybe 8 or 10 international students, but when I moved out the house probably had the same number of non-international students. In my time at the house, I had housemates from the USA, Kenya, Nepal, France, Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, Japan, Uganda, Mexico, El Salvador, England, Germany, China, Poland, India, Thailand, Switzerland, Nigeria, Serbia, Bulgaria... and that is just how much I can get off my head. Living with all these different people, from all over the world, and learning to build trust and expectations to the level of keeping the house running amongst ourselves, was an excellent lesson (and in deed an experiment) in social living.

Like anybody who spent 3 college years living at one place, I could go on and on, but I think the big picture is adequately painted.

I guess that depends how much you are willing to commute and spend, there are student apartments right on campus, they even have apartments dedicated to graduates so if you're limited on time, you can be very close and cut your commute time to next to nothing.

This is the part of the UIC website that explains how it works: UIC Campus Housing, A Division of Student Affairs

And here are the rates for different types of apartments/living arrangements for graduate students: UIC Campus Housing, A Division of Student Affairs

The coolest thing about these apartments, if you select the right contract, if you have a roommate that drops in the middle of the year you don't have to pick up the rent, you can get meal plans added on in some cases but it will most likely cost you 9-13k for the academic year (room and sometimes a meal plan included). But at least everything is included and it may take some undue stress away. The worst part, depending on the plan you will most likely have to move out and move back in during breaks.

Otherwise, like most students you can live off campus. I have lived off campus, all over the northside and my commutes at the shortest have been about 45 minutes to an hour and at the longest, a little over an hour and a half via the CTA. Of course that means, you have to worry about rent, utilities, personal bills, groceries etc and if you get a roommate, if they move out, you get to carry their burden. Chicago rent can also be rather expensive, especially if you live in a better neighborhood. If you are not careful, you can end up spending just as much as you would living on campus but at least then you have your own place without having to worry about campus rules and regulations and not having to move out and in constantly.

Of course, if you have family that lives in the area or in the suburbs you can live with them, a lot of students either drive in everyday (I think it's about 300-400 a semester to get a parking spot: Rates & Fees - UICPARKING ) or they park their car by the Blue Line and take that in, which is literally right off campus. Of course, there is also the Metra that you can take into downtown and I think there are buses that come straight from both Metra stations. But at least then you have the security that comes with living with family and they may help lower the price of living compared to living alone on or off campus.

So it really comes down to what you are looking for, there is no one solution that works for everyone. Good luck!

Munger, hands down. The rooms are spacious and beautiful. It's reasonably close to the heart of campus, including the bookstore, post office, and Tresidder. You'd have easy access to a quality piano, if that's your thing. You'd also be steps away from the Market at Munger, which offers a discount to Munger residents:

As an undergraduate at Stanford, I lived in a studio in EV for two years (for medical reasons). I was perfectly happy there - it was certainly a solid step above undergraduate housing. However, whenever I was invited to hang out in Munger, I found myself consumed by jealousy.

Rains is kind of cute but pretty far from the center of campus. I know less about Lyman, but it also seems to be rather inconveniently located (unless, perhaps, if you're commuting to SLAC). Barring some special need that is better addressed by another residence, I'd definitely recommend living in Munger if you get the opportunity.

I can only speak for my own experience, but I don't know a single graduate student at University of Michigan who lives or has lived in on-campus, university affiliated housing.

There are far, far more graduate students than slots available in on-campus housing, so most students must live elsewhere. On-campus housing has about 1100 apartments and generously assuming that each is a 3 bedroom unit entirely filled with students, that's only 3300 grad students in housing maximum compared to 15300 graduate and professional students enrolled in Fall 2015. And it seems like most housing is geared toward students with families, where most of the space is occupied by non-students, so that's a gross overestimate of the number of grad students living in housing.

You get an apartment and pay much less than you would have otherwise.

There are none. Berkeley housing is in exceptionally short supply and very expensive. You’ll be competing with hundreds of Asian students who have very wealthy folks paying their way and more than willing to pay up or pay for the entire year all at once. I had a very good friend in that situation. In one case, he found a spot on tenth street, which was a profoundly unsafe nabe. After 6 months of searching, he found a decent place in El Cerrito. You need to follow up on every lead and probably need to continuously search, probably for months. Possibly your best bet is to offer to pay way too much for a room with others in a house. I don’t envy your situation one bit.

Really it is so easy to take the express buses to get to the Loop that the Metra is not any more convenient (at all). I live on Hyde Park Blvd and there are multiple buses that go downtown right in front of my building. The grad housing is cheap and fairly nice. I would stay away from the grad housing on 61st though. There are plenty of 172 buses (campus buses) that run by every ten minutes or so, so getting to campus is not an issue. I prefer to walk though. Clears the mind before starting my day. And definitely live in Hyde Park. It would be ridiculous to live elsewhere. HP is the best neighborhood in the city (and I have lived in Lincoln Square, South Loop, University Village, Evanston and Logan Square).

It really depends on the quality and cost of the on-campus options. I don't know anything about Michigan, but I can talk about my experiences at my university.

I went to Columbia for grad school. Columbia has two campuses - the main Morningside campus, in Morningside Heights, and the medical center campus uptown in Washington Heights. Morningside Heights is between the Upper West Side and Harlem, and as such is a pretty desirable neighborhood. Market rental rates in the neighborhood are really high, out of most graduate students' price range. However, Columbia owns a lot of apartments in the area, and rents them to graduate students at subsidized rates. They're regular apartments; it's just like renting any other apartment on the open market. There are no RAs and no really specific regulations you wouldn't face in a regular apartment. But they are really close to campus - you can walk! As a result, the vast majority of grad students I know who have access to the Morningside apartments rent one.

By contrast, the medical center campus is in Washington Heights - which I think was a great neighborhood, but it's not one of the most desirable in New York. as a result, the rents are relatively low there, and one can rent a comparable or better apartment on the open market in that neighborhood for the same price as a university owned option in the same neighborhood. The university only owns limited housing in the Wash Heights area, and honestly in my opinion a lot of it is lower quality than what you can get on your own. For example, some of the options are traditional dorm-style options (a room on a corridor with a shared kitchen and lounge); some of the apartments are railroad style (you have to go through someone else's room to get to yours), and some of them don't have ovens. In that case, it made more sense to get an off-campus apartment for me.

So, those are the basic things you should look for when trying to make a decision. Check out what Michigan's on-campus options are like, and compare them to non-university options in Ann Arbor on distance to campus, quality, cost, and other important factors.

I was HBS class of 2003. The answer largely depends on your situation (married, or otherwise living with a significant other). Other key criteria include:

• How much money do you want to spend (or not spend, as was my case)?
• Do you need parking?
• How much space, and what kind of amenities do you need?
• Do you want/like to cook?

In my case, I was solo (now wife was doing her MBA at Cornell), looking to save money, wanted to be close to class, Shad (the gym), parking, and on-campus dining (the food is actually really good).

I lived in the dorms, and really liked it. It's not like the typical undergrad dorm experience (i.e. no RAs). I lived in Gallatin and had a nice bedroom, decent size living room to myself. I then shared a bathroom with two other guys. It was a good set up. I took the tunnels in the winter and wore shorts to class, get food, and work out. The dorms stay open over winter and spring breaks. There is good parking nearby (at SFP).

SFP is a good option if you want more space or are married. It wasn't cheap, but was a reasonable value compared to other alternatives.

I had plenty of friends who lived off campus. Cambridge has some decent places, with character. I had a very well-off friend who lived in an amazing condo (he bought) in Boston.

Personally, I wouldn't want to be so far off campus, since HBS really should be an almost 24/7 experience to make the most of it.

The HBS campus is awesome, so I'd recommend living in the dorms or SFP. Then going off campus when you want to...

My experience with university grad housing was positive - it was the lowest stress experience I've had with renting an apartment and I enjoyed my two years there. The apartments are not all that modern or updated, but functional and generally well-maintained. I'd recommend it for at least your first year. It's worth considering the location of the apartment too - your experience will be very different living northeast of the campus versus southwest. You're much closer to shops, etc if you're to the north.

It's probably the best value in Hyde Park if you're renting alone. The other good alternative is splitting a two or three bedroom in a private rental, which can work out better for many people. I'd highly recommend checking out any private rentals in person before you commit - the quality of private rentals varies enormously in Hyde Park because most of the housing stock is 50-100 years old.

Students usually live in one of two forms of housing in University: dorms or off campus housing.

Dorms are smaller units supplied by the University, but still at a decent cost to the students. They are usually shared and basically a room with shared bathrooms.

Off campus housing usually is a bit more expensive because you have to depend on market rates for rent. The units are a bit bigger, but still can be relatively small since the landlords realize the needs of students and do their best to leverage the economics of the situation.

There are also other possibilities like fraternity or sorority houses, but these are less common and usually at least after a semester or quarter at the institution. They are usually similar in size to the dorms.

On my campus (Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel) it actually is (but only for 2 years). It should be guaranteed at least for 1st year at any academic institution which has on-campus housing for graduate students and cares to attract (more) international graduate students, because it is often indeed impossible to find reasonable private housing from abroad. But if the institution's leaders don't care about it (e.g. care about domestic students more than about international ones, which often makes sense because international students most likely won't stay to work in that country for most of their lives), they can't be forced to care. My advice is for every international student to get informed about housing options (on-campus and nearby in town) and how difficult it is to get them before applying to any academic institution, or at least before accepting the offer/declining other offers, because it can indeed be a deciding factor or affect quality of life (and thus also work productivity) a lot (during my master's, I got accepted into a research internship in Germany which I couldn't attend in big part due to lack of housing - that wasn't the only reason but it was one of the main ones).

Most of the larger universities do offer year round housing as long as you are a student during the summer (And being a summer student can be just taking 1 or 2 classes). They also have housing for exchange students specifically as a lot of them cannot easily leave the country and come back again. Definitely talk to your housing director and explain the situation. They may be able to make accommodations for you during the couple week break between spring and summer courses as well as summer and fall.
And don't feel bad about asking friends if you can sleep on their couch for a couple weeks between semesters. A lot of students either do not want or cannot go home during the breaks. So don't feel like you are alone in not having some place to go outside of school.

I'm not sure what you mean by "best" but I lived in Regent Towers from 2004-2005 (moved back up to the north side and commuted after that). The bus was pretty regular and went all through campus if you don't have a car. The buildings are adjacent to LSD/Lake Michigan and the apartments on the lake side of the building have a great view. There was a gym, pool, computer labs, small mini mart, laundry and a restaurant when I was there. The building isn't exclusively students but there was a healthy amount of grad students in the building; particular law, business, med. That could be a good/bad thing depending on your point of view. I think it was on the expensive side for a student but a lot of bang for buck compared to similar sized one bedrooms on the north side. There also might have been a discount for students but I can't remember that far back. Hope that helps.

As with everything else, there is no absolute best. What is best for one person, may be a hideously bad choice for another.

The most convenient, obviously, is the on-campus housing. These days they provide that both for single and for married students. However, it has all the common liabilities of living in high-density housing -- diminished privacy, noise, small space, a sense of institutionalization, sometimes second-floor or third-floor living (or above), limited yard space, and so on.

There are all manner of off-campus living arrangements available. They range from living in a second-floor room in a private home or rooming house, up to renting an entire house. In the latter case, one has all the benefits of a private home, but also the liabilities of maintenance, travel, etc.

When I attended HBS, with a wife and two kids, we had already gotten accustomed to having our own home; so we rented a house out in Arlington MA. That worked out just fine for us, clearly our best option by far. But it meant a long commute to and from school, usually during rush hours.

You have to decide "best for you" on the basis of cost, convenience, comfort, privacy, family needs, travel, and other such considerations.

A2A by DeekP

Hostel facilities are provided by schools and colleges only. Sometimes, students prefer to live with their relatives if they are close with them. Such behavior is more evident in school students than college students.

Apart from the above choices, sometime the hostel is already full and the students are forced to stay in PGs. Paying Guests are just like hostels with the difference of being privately owned and managed. Sometimes, PGs offer more and better facilities to the students and other times they are just as strict as hostels in terms of rules and regulations.

Hope this helps!

Checkout my blogs at The Stories of My Life and Duty Calls.

Dear future Badger,

Transportation in Madison is pretty good and it's a very walkable town. A bicycle or scooter will suit you well in the warmer months, while a car or living closer to Grainger will be ideal for the colder months, but you can survive without a car.

About me: I'm 34 and a Badger alumni, I taught a class there the other day and have lived in Madison for 20+ years.

My short answer: If you can afford it, I'd look at Ovation 309 as my #1 choice. Nice new building, great gym, nice community room with incredible views and walking distance from Grainger. My #2 option would be the Domain.

Questions I would think about:

What is my budget? Am I looking to buy or rent? Do I want to live in a house or apartment?

Here's what I'd suggest depending on your preferences:

#1 - Live on Langdon. Pros: Close to class, within walking distance. Restaurants and shops of State Street at your doorstep. Cons: Drunk college kids.

#2 - The Madison Mark, Domain Apartments, Constellation, Ovation 309 are all good options, though Constellation and Madison Mark are a bit farther away than would be ideal but are still walkable. Pros: Nice area, shops and restaurants nearby. Cons: More expensive, farther from class.

#3 Look for rentals on Brooks and near Dayton Street. Pros: Close to Grainger. Cons: Less available properties, old homes.

Hope this is helpful. Feel free to message me if you want more details.

As others have said, a lot depends on how much you're willing to spend. Also, whether you want to live in a dormitory or in an apartment. Either way I'd recommend living on or as close to campus as possible in order to get the most out of the incredible experience that is HBS. I was single at the time, didn't have a lot of spare cash and so lived in the dorms. It worked out really well. I met a lot of people who weren't in my section who became good friends (and I met their friends and so on). Also, it's convenient. Parking is nearby and the food at HBS is pretty good.

An apartment at Soldiers Field Park is a one of a couple of nearby alternatives but like most apartments in the area, Harvard-owned or otherwise, it's significantly more expensive. Of course there are some students to whom that isn't important. I had one friend who commuted to campus daily from his very own Beacon Hill townhouse.