Which college to you prefer? The three base ones, or do you like to make your own?

I haven`t sent enough students to University yet to have formed an opinion.

I prefered the hacks that let you go to college from the base hood.

@ani_
I've never heard of that hack, but it sounds interesting.

@ani: ooo, where do THOSE exist?

And I prefer the Strangetown one (which I have renamed, so I forget what it's called, lol).

I use the standard three unis. They're good enough that I don't feel the need to make whole new unis from scratch, just a little revamping of the existent dorms and community lots does the trick. I also like having some skilling centers so the kids don't stay confined to dorms 24/7, so I have a couple custom comm lots that I add to every uni (my own Arts Academy, Science & Technology Center, etc). A little customizing + my extra comm lots = perfect campus for me.

The uni I play the least is Académie Le Tour, because only my very rich sims go there. I make uni actually cost money, so a new family usually can't afford Le Tour for a couple generations, unless they get extremely lucky. Sim State gets played a lot because it's the catch-all, sims that can't afford to send their kids to snotty Le Tour pack them over to good ole State, and teens who manage to get a few scholarships can go there too. La Fiesta, for all that it's definitely not my favorite uni, ends up getting played the most - in my lush terrain hoods LFT is the community college for poor/cheapo sims, and in my desert terrain hoods it's the only uni available at all.

As far as preference, State is my favorite. Le Tour frustrates me because I always forget to add Greek Houses until I need one (so I have to stop playing and go find them in the bin), and La Fiesta's comm lots are pretty lacking on everything. Sims State on the other hand has enough diverse community lots that I don't need to add as many custom ones, and also offers more dorm variety, so I can spread my YAs around better (controlling more than two in one dorm overwhelms me a bit, specially if I intend them to live college differently and keep having to remind myself which one is supposed to get A+ and which one is supposed to go on probation).

I prefer my custom university neighborhood.

I do have all three EAxis default Unis attached to my Megahood game, and I like being able to send the kids from the different neighborhoods there to different Unis (kind of similar to what ginrouken describes, with Le Tour being a private liberal arts college for the wealthy, Sim State being the state school, and -- here's where I differ -- La Fiesta being for the science and tech overachievers, a la MIT or Caltech). However, I can accomplish a similar division simply by using different dorms in my custom Uni, and I also avoid the weird experience of seeing students I associate with one campus showing up at the other two. Silly game must think all Uni hoods are linked by an underground tunnel system.

College in base hood hacks:

http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,96190.0.html

http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,98091.0.html

College isn't free series:

http://www.ancienthighway.net/smf/index.php?board=1.0

I use custom ones that I've made. Admittedly, both are still very much under construction and have been for some time! I tend to rush sims through university so developing the uni hoods are not a big priority sim-wise. One is a tropical-ish, beachfront campus and the other is a snowy city.

I used to use the custom ones - I think they're good - but I wanted an entirely custom NH, including sub-hoods.

I used to use the in-game colleges, but got very tired of the excess character files it dumped into my game. So I went and got ChristianLov's fake college degree and have started giving out the diplomas when the teens are about to grow into adults. This skips college, gives them the memories, and enables them to get the jobs associated with college.
But I couldn't really stand any of them.

My favorite is Sim State. I only attach one university at a time, and I went through Le Tour for a little while and then did Sim State and then I wanted to play something new so I just started up La Fiesta - I would've made a custom one, but got too lazy to make all the community and dorm lots myself. So far, I think I dislike Le Tour most.

I prefer Sim-state just because it fits my ideas of a four year university due to the npc's it uses. I see cheerleaders, mascots, coaches and I think about state run universities like the ones where I live.

Basketball rivalries are big between Duke & UNC, of course they have their coaches, mascots, cheerleaders plus notorious parties. So maybe that is why, Sim State would be my favorite--what I am most familiar with.

Le tour reminds me of ivy league: I just cant really picture the wildness( although I am sure their must be with fresh adults).

Basically I have a similar line of thinking with Mangaroo on the feel of each one.

Last edited by cdanon : 10th Mar 2010 at 01:43 AM. Reason: full of "ands"

You mean La Fiesta?

(Couldn't think of a better name for college. LOL)

I like Academie de Tour myself.

But I HATE those cows and those professors...oy!

My personal favourite is Le Tour... but that may just be because I've played it the most and thus am most familiar with it. I have tried Sim State as well, but only briefly, and never gone into Fiesta.

That said, I like Mangaroo and Ginrouken's ideas for "different unis for different purposes/classes of families". May have to incorporate that into my newest hood when I get to adding Unis. I've got some of the "College isn't Free" stuff anyway as liked the idea of automatic tuition fees and also harder grades: A+ without term papers? Get real!

One of these days I'm going to have to create a college of my own. One of my favorite parts of Sims is building houses and things. I could get lost for hours building one house.

I also like to remodel things. Take a wall out here, add a door there--and I just got Apartment Life so I've been putting closets in Sim bedrooms.

That has to be done when I can actually sit down for a few hours. I do have an eight-year-old and housework.

I prefer making custom colleges that I can fill with my own, custom young adults.

I love playing University, then again I live in a college town which could be the reason. I prefer La Tour myself although I've altered it so drastically it might as well be a custom hood. My Sims start off in dorms just like most Freshmen do, in the States anyway, but I've added some fraternity and sorority houses as well as cheap student housing for the upperclassmen.

I've tried to make it as close to the ivy league colleges I'm most familiar with. I've played the State one but I didn't care for it much, since I'm not a fan of the desert I haven't played La Fiesta at all.

I'm playing Fiesta right now as part of the Apocalypse Challenge, and I like it how it is, no modifications. I do have some basic plans in my head for custom dorm designs, though, for when I go back to making colleges from scratch. Le Tour sucks and I haven't tried Sim State yet.

I admit to sometimes using the familyfunds cheat to give my college Sims more cash--but typically that's if I created them as students, rather than if they were actually sent to college from a neighborhood. Typical scenario for me with that--guy and girl, get them married (using InTeeminater) as soon as their friendship scores are high enough, wait until they've graduated before having babies.

Of the three defaults ... Sim State.

But like others here, I prefer making my own campuses. And on any campus, I get rid of any building that houses more than 10 Sims. Those large dorms are a pain in the neck, IMO. I like to construct my own dorms that house about 6 - 8 students.

I like La fiesta, probably because the Sims I send there are more interesting. If a teen sim has a six or higher in creativity, logic, or charisma I will send them to LeTour. Anyone can go to Sim State or La fiesta Tech, but I like my science-bound sims to go to La fiesta because I don't know, i think it's like a area 51 tech college for nerd sims :P

Same here... I don't like subhoods of any kind.

And I haven't tried any of the premade unis heh.

I really like Sim State University, but my favourite one is Academy Le Tour ( the only university that actually had two of my students till' the end of their studies... I've sent a lot of students to university but never finished their studies !!!! )

I'm not sure what the difference is other than the layout, except Le Tour doesn't have Greek houses.

There`s the layout, and then there`s the style. The three pre-made campuses certainly *LOOK* different enough.