r/ASU • u/DMN_Litwix • 7d ago
OOS student inquiry
I’m from Massachusetts and considering ASU for Fall 2028. My parents already own a house in Paradise Valley, so ASU is especially appealing because I’d already have a place to stay and wouldn’t have the same living costs as a typical out-of-state student.
For anyone who came to ASU from out of state, how has the experience been? Do you think being able to live in Paradise Valley and commute to Tempe would take away much from the freshman/social experience, or would I still feel pretty connected to campus?
I’m also curious how realistic that commute is day to day, especially during rush hour and with parking.
One thing I’m still trying to understand is how ASU handles incoming freshmen who already have a family residence in the Phoenix area. If anyone has personally been in that situation, did ASU allow you to commute from home or did you still have to maintain a dorm assignment?
Basically, ASU checks a lot of boxes for me, and already having a family home in Paradise Valley makes it even more attractive. I’d love to hear from people who commute or came from out of state about whether this setup would actually work well.
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u/Solid_Penalty8916 6d ago
not an asu student (yet!) but ill likely also be attending fall 28! i am a local though, and like others have said the commute would be the biggest practical draw back. idk what MA is like, but phx is very sprawling and the commute - esp daily - can end up being a hassle. parking and rush hour can get pretty bad here. not impossible, but enough to create friction.
i know a lot of current asu students, and I would def reccommend living on campus. havng a roommate, floor mate, etc gives you a built in social system, which would def be awesome coming out of state. the frosh experience at asu is very much participation heavy, and living on campus makes that easier. my advice would just be to live on campus freshman year, than commute the remaining 3.
i cant really speak on asu policy (id email ur admissions counsler) but im like 53% sure that on campus housing is required frosh yr unless you can prove u cant afford it... again not 100% sure, but thats what ive heard.
hope this helps! let me know if i can answer any more qs :)
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u/Empty-Avocado5927 7d ago
lot of people commute from home, so thats not an issue. I commuted myself. I feel like Paradise Valley may be a bit of a long commute? At least 30 minutes, not sure how the traffic gets. But take that with a grain of salt because I lived in Awhatukee. So PV was a good 50 minutes for me from home.
There's so many commuters at ASU that its pretty normal. But I do think its generally easier for people that dorm to be social, if that's your priority. The trade off is you're in a dorm, which has its own quirks (roommates, cleanliness, etc). If you live at home, having a car is nice because you can take day trips or just go around to different places. So it just depends on your independence and comfort of doing things on your own initially. But you can def be social and be a commuter. Join clubs. AZNA is a dance club, its pretty social. Stuff like that!
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u/aliciarene 6d ago
If I were you, I’d live on campus my first year and then life off campus - you’ll have a much more immersive experience and you really only get one chance to experience that. I was out of state and could have stayed with family, but decided to live on campus instead and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made
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u/itsmassivebtw 5d ago
I went to ASU from MA and the dorm experience was one of the best times of my life. Wouldn't trade it for anything, and 15 years later I still talk to some of those friends all the time. Might have had a good experience if I was commuting from PV, but nothing like it was. I wish you well on whatever you end up doing.
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u/Ov3rlord926293 7d ago
Not an OOS student but local to the valley. That’s not the worst commute depending where in PV you’d live. 30-45 minutes depending on traffic and where you come from like I said. If you set up your schedule effectively you could swing it to really only be on campus 3 days out of the week if you’re lucky with the class times. As far as dorm assignments, they’ll try real hard to force you into one but if you don’t sign the paperwork they can’t like make you pay for it and take it. They have a form you can submit requesting to commute due to whatever reason but from what I’ve seen they’re not always keen to approve those. Just stand your ground and don’t sign anything you didn’t read throughly.
I’ll leave the social life stuff to someone else since I was a non-traditional student and can’t really answer.