How do you play the family left at home while a Young Adult is at University? I mean do you play the YA all the way thru college & then pick back up with the normal family or do you play the family a season, the YA a semester? I've only played the YA all the way thru but that leaves my family at home in the exact spot they were when Jr. went to college. Can I have some ideas from you guys? Thanks in advance!

Since i have a shorter semester mod (here at MTS) , so that only takes 8 days to finish college, i have no problem with my families and their offspring.
I play in 1 or 2 day/semester rotations so they stay synced. Sometimes i have my YA stay at home so they can help with younger siblings and visit college that way. This is also a mod. see here at InSim

Ideally it comes down to how much you like playing the YA stage and uni in general. Me personally I agree that playing it all the way through before playing the family again doesn't make logical sense. I had the Pleasant twins go through college and come back and Mary-Sue was still pregnant with their unborn sibling. Then again since I do one day rotations playing uni as a 1 day rotation in the list would mean that some sims are stuck in college limbo forever but I'm okay with that because it keeps me more focused on mapping out things for down the line and being able to ponder through snags when new situations throw a curve ball.

Rotation. Once in a while, in my game, the family will invite the student(s) over; and vice versa. The family still take the student with them on vacation, and the student invites his/her family over for a social outing.

What I'd do is open up the family, play, and then when I'm done with that household, make a note of how many days are left in whatever season. Open up the YA's household, play until I reach the day that I left the family on, and then everybody's on the same day.

I play in rotations, so the university sims get added to the end of my rotation schedule.

When I play with my longer-aging sims, three days in the main 'hood (technically three and a half) is one year, and the university system almost lines up to that perfectly. I play semesters 1,2,4,6,8 so for years 2-4 one year at uni = one year back in the main 'hood.

When I play with my regular aging sims, I do university in four-year lumps, noting down when a sim leaves for university (e.g. rotations are Mon-Thurs and Thurs-Mon, so I'd note down when a teen went off to university on Tuesday and add them in on the right day/play a reduced amount of time). They then get moved back once finished and the remainder of a rotation played (e.g. that sim that headed off on Tuesday would be back in the main 'hood on Saturday and played until 6AM Monday).

I usually play 1 day rotations and send teens off to college 5 days before becoming an adult. Therefore I play 1 year (2 semesters) per rotation, so that it keeps teens that didn't go to college and Adults at the same age like this:
Enter college at 6-5 days (depending on the time of day) until adulthood
Freshman - 5-4 days until adulthood
Sophomore - 4-3 days until adulthood
Junior - 3-2 days until adulthood
Senior - 2-1 days before adulthood (Where sims either age up, or graduate and become an adult)
Then I move them into a house at the start of a new rotation

I have inteen so sims leave high school 7 days before becoming an adult. During this time sims that plan on going to uni tend to do some skilling for scholarships, whereas other sims find adult jobs - or sit around and do nothing. In Riverblossom, it's not uncommon for sims to get married and start a family during this time.

Each year at college = 1 day in the main hood, I will play the student all the way through and before I have them throw there party I will go play the main hood for 4 days then go have them throw there party and move back to the main hood.

I use a multitude of hacks. With the aging hack I use, four sim days equal one year. The college hack I use has two days equal one semester of college. With inteen, either my sims get the independent teen phase or I send them to college. So everybody stays synced in rotation. I use the lotsynctimer from MATY to aid in this endeavor.

So you can see that if it bugs you, you can get pretty creative about obsessively keeping ages in order.

If you don't want mods, figure out what you think the appropriate amount of time is for a semester or year of college in main hood terms and line them up. Playing college days one for one with main hood days . . . well, an adult sim has 29 days. A YA sim, unmodded, who does not drop out and plays out the 'after semester' period has 27 days. Everyone seems to find that problematical.

I use the sync timer. It doesn't advance on university lots so I manually advance it one day for every exam. I don't let them repeat a semester if they get on probation, they get pushed to the next one (still on probation). It makes it harder and it pulls their total grade down.

That way I keep them in sync. If the student is likely to move back in with his/her family, I usually keep them a little bit behind the uni timescale just in case they drop out early. If I don't plan for them to move back, then it doesn't matter who is on the later day.

I just play the YA all through college and then go back to the family, if they had not gone to college in the first place they would've become adults straight away, so I treat the YA stage more like an extra life stage in the game.

I use twojeff's age duration hack, which puts the average lifespan of my sims at about 75-80 days. One day in the main hood equals a year 'in real time' or two semesters at college. To keep YA's from getting extra time, I send my simmies to college when they are 4 days from adulthood.

Like Sunbee I use a multitude of hacks. Education is one of the biggest areas of my game play as are ages. Uni as it is, is ridiculously long at 24 days, this is the main issue with it given an unmodded sims adult life is 30 days. Before I modded all of this I would play the family awhile and then play the uni student for awhile and kind of judge when a younger sibling might join them. If the parents were going to age up I would stop playing them.

In my game 1 day = 6 months and this does not change from main hood to uni.
I now use 48 hour uni as linked to above which shortens Uni to 16 days or 8 years. 8 years at uni is still quite a long time but somewhat doable. I just now have the first gen in my new hood becoming young adults. So far 4 of them are sitting there at dorms unplayed apart from a makeover. They will all start classes on the first day of the new year. What I have been debating is if I should change to 36 hour UNI. This would give them 1 1/2 days per semester, so 12 days/6 years. My uni will only take new students at years start and mid year. This does give some trouble with the aging as some who missed years start will be sitting in the uni bin in an age freeze for a few days until mid year. I choose to ignore that. This is my only issue with the system I have, but I really do not want uni students starting every single day and everyone being that staggered. Currently my sims enter uni at age 18 and leave aged 26 and those 16 days will also be played at home via rotation. I use a double aging mod for sims in the home town. In most families the parents of the uni students are currently sitting at about 35-30 days to elder so while 16 days will push them along quite a bit they will not turn grey haired while the kid is away. My teen life span is shortened to 10 days/5 years so any younger teen siblings will get to also go to uni while the eldest is still there. I also use a two day pregnancy mod so that means often siblings are more closely aged together. In the main hood I also have young adults, some who will go to community college and others who might get jobs, start a business or do whatever they feel like. They will stay YA for 16 days also but I have to keep track of them manually. I like all sims going to uni or not to have that age from 18-26 as a young adult.

Lot Sync Timer is my friend. In my game, teenhood last 7 days and adulthood 43.
When a teen goes to uni, I set an event at "+4 days" with Lot Sync Timer. I get a popup which remind me when the student has to come back to the hood.
Each semester last 48 hours. I play 4 semesters in a row which represent 2 simdays in the hood. When sims are back from uni, I substract 4 days of their lifespan so that they stay in sync with others sims, especially when twins/triplets are involved. Uni is not for all even if it's free.

The important thing is to figure out the rate you're comfortable playing. In Drama Acres, I treat 1 day of regular rotation as three days in college - this prevents me having to worry about the differences in semester length for different characters. In Widespot, I treat one day as equal to one chosen sim's semester - first it was one Dixie-semester, then after she graduated it became one Woody-semester. In both, I play one day in each playable household and rotate through University multiple times in the course of the defined period before going back to the main neighborhood. Because I love playing University, and don't fret about age-synching, this is easy and comfortable for me in those hoods.

In the Genderswapped Uberhood, I am mainly playing one protagonist family through the Uberhood Challenge, playing one day with aging on, followed by a variable number of days with aging off, followed by a day each in households that are important to the protagonist family (generally the folks back home + the other playable families with eligible babymamas in the current subhood), a few days in random houses that intersect with the protagonist's circle as I feel like it, and when certain closely-connected playables are at college, two semesters measured by the life of one college student defined as the most important. Other college playables will get played as I feel like it - some of them are taking a very long time to get through college, and that's okay with me. They're doing graduate work! Whereas I tend to extend college life in Drama Acres by sending people on outings and dates to off-campus lots where time stops, the GS Uberhood campuses have specially-built date locations, so that the time feels shorter to me. I will also break up these university sessions when I get tired. I might play an aging -on day in the protagonist's household, followed by one Dixie-semester, followed by all the families in Widespot, followed by some aging off days in the protagonist's household, followed by the second Dixie-semester, followed by some other households who interacted with the protagonist, before finally playing another aging day for the protagonist.

So the answer to your question is situational and will be unique to yourself. You'll have to look at your hood and the rate of play with which you're comfortable, decide how time flows in your hood, and how your playstyle will need to change while playing university.

Because it will need to change, and I can guarantee you this - if you treat University as a chore to get through, which you are obliged to grind out in order to get back to your interesting main hoods, you won't enjoy it and would be better off not doing it. University is paced differently and it is necessary to engage with it in on its own terms. When you play University, you should not focus on "getting through it" but on "getting at the fun of it." It's a time to really splash out and get to know your sims, to experiment and allow them to experiment, to find the funny things behind the features that at first seem like annoyances and interruptions. Let your YAs have character arcs. Throw outrageous parties. Sow wild oats. Don't fear the cow mascot - smite him! Date him! Outfox him! Laugh as the cheerleader cheers the couple having their first woohoo! Influence the coach to clean! Be late to finals! Play love triangles, or quadrangles, or bisexual love polyhedrons. Hunt through the catalogs and pie menus for things you've never used and interactions you've never tried and try them all! Invite the family over one day, throw an orgy the next! Invite all your teen friends and take them on a college tour!

How that synchs up with the folks back home will vary from player to player, and from hood to hood.

I used to do the same but then found out there's a hack allowing the sim to do college from home. Don't always playing at a separate household while giving education to my sims.
Here's a link: http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,96190.0.html

I play with normal aging for sims up to adults and adults and elders are aging three times a week. It creates a little mess in their ages and I send teens to college at last minute (at morning of their birthday). My YAs are away from main hood for 8 days, It makes 1 day per semester. Usually if I do 1-day rotations this one semester is played at the end of rotation. When I do longer rotations (if nothing is significant) I just play same number of semesters. It keeps memories in sync. I just took 8 days because younger siblings can be with older ones together in uni that way.

Tons of great ideas here and I have used some of them in the past myself. I'm trying not to be so rigid in this hood as for me it led to a game feeling like work in the past. I will say that I do use TwoJeffs age duration hack as well. I do play in rotations but I'm not crazy strict about it anymore. In Uni I do a couple of things to try to keep things in sync. First I don't like playing dorms they just don't suit my playstyle. I play either Greek houses or just large houses with multiple Sims. For the Greek house, you have to abide by the structure of the game to move in underclassmen and you have to constantly have at least one student to keep the charter. The large houses I can just move Sims in as I see fit and you still have to have a student at all times or you lose everything in the house.

I play a full Semester in the rotation as a general rule and I group students with their peers. The only thing I don't allow is couples can't live in the same house together. It makes it too easy if they have constant access to each other. I like 4 to 6 players in a house so I have enough stuff going on to keep me busy but not so much that a Sim gets shorted.

For the main hood I tend to play 3-day rotations again I don't keep it strict. If I have something going on or that I'm working toward I might play more days than 3. I'm really all about the fun in this hood and less about the accuracy.