I have always liked University for several reasons:

* It is the time my Sims will make their minds on their future (or not) partner/spouse.
* Enjoying seeing Sims with various aspirations act completely different when it comes to work on their College papers/ assignments.
* I always cram 5-6 of them into a student house instead of a dorm, so they don't have to associate with people they are never to see again after graduation. Really, I don't need the extra, useless memories about meeting the dorm chef.
* Sims will get to know each other better, form friendships and before long they will become BFF, making thus the required number of friends for future career advancement never, ever being an issue for them.
* All of them have acquired a great variety of skills *before* rolling to College --necessary for being granted scholarships-- which means more free time for them to goof around.
* I always send them on a vacation just a little before reaching their Senior year, and they have a splendid time. Some Sims, quite rarely though, roll the want to go on a vacation, especially after breaking up with their significant other. They do.
* I throw parties for those who keep rolling the want, but there is nothing I can do when, during the party, their roll the want to have their first woohoo -- [Darling, most of your friends are taken, and if you don't have already a boyfriend/girlfriend, whom you will woohoo with? Get real!]
* Some Sims will work on their hobbies and become better at them gaining a few badges on the way.
* They are allowed to visit Downtown Friday evenings and have a blast.
* I also like how sometimes student Sims roll the want to talk to their parents at 3.00 a.m. especially when something really good or very bad has happened in their lives.
* I have placed a skating ring in the Uni 'hood and a small cabin-like cafeteria, so outings with friends, siblings and significant others are always a "must-have" in the winter.
* I like it when their best friends or siblings living in another house come to visit, and they sit down to study all together. Sims who are good hosts will also cook dinner and invite them to the table afterwards.
* Also, forming a band, for those artistically inclined and talented, and playing in the Uni cafeteria is a good way to have fun and earn Simoleons at the same time.


In short, I love University. I deal with their College years not as a boring necessity, but rather as a different phase in their lives when Sims' only responsibility is to write papers and progress in their studies. I don't know, but compared to the adult life, with jobs and kids, University sounds like a heaven to me.

P.S. I forgot to mention that at some point some of my students have got a job in a beauty salon owned by another student's father. They didn't actually need the money, but it was a nice change of pace.

I actually really like University, especially when there's seasons and the dormies can have fun playing in the leaves or snow.

I also found this really beautiful dormitory here on MTS, and it's very nice and realistic, and even has a store on location and a gym, so my sim has everything it needs on their dorm's campus. So having a really nice dormitory makes the University experience a lot more fun.

The only thing I find irritating about University is dormies walking around like they're Pepe Le Pew. But that can be solved by moving into a private residence.

Ah, but that was the only way I learned to use 'influence'.

Yeah, but sometimes you don't have enough Influence to tell the whole DORM to shower up! LOL

Bathroom Uses You (from MATY) is a good solution for stinky sims for residential and community lots.

I assume Bathroom Uses You works for dorms, but I haven't allowed my sims to live in a dorm for several years and can't remember that far back.

I send my sims rarely to college. Legacy might be the only exception, when I'm trying to decide who's going to inherit and I want a little extra time to think about it. Even then I usually let them drop out after 1st year. I personally just have UNI installed because of it's items and interactions.

I actually really love the University expac. Its probably my favorite other than Seasons (snowman + penguins is just too cute). But the reasons I liked University were because:

-Gave your sims an extended life, they had a whole other phase of growing stuck in there and it wasn't as dramatic as teen to adult, which I never understood.
-As mentioned by other posters, I also used university to find potential spouses for my sims and kind of used it to start planning their adult lives a little in advance due to that aspect
-I like how your major affects greatly your careers and how it gives you a leg up in the totem pole after graduation
-The dorms are OK. I usually start my sims off in dorms and either move them off to frat/sorority houses or have them moved in with their future husband/wife in student housing
-Building Frats/Sororities are awesome. I load up on a great deal of money with the motherlode cheat and then I just go crazy customizing the buildings for them, I try to put a little of everything, like the one Frat house I have has a whole floor that's a club basically with turntable and dance floor, separate area for karaoke and hookah lounge type thing.
-Some of the objects that come with it are nice. I don't really dig the tattered furniture it comes with, but the cow plant is pretty cool.
-Zombies.

So yeah... I guess I mainly like it because it adds more depth to my game. Gives my sims more of a storyline and really adapts with my personal playstyle as a control freak.

The only thing I don´t like is that every single teen wants to go to College. IRL not everybody want that. I think that only knowlegde- and fortune sims should start crying and get that bad memoty if they miss their chance to go to College. But a family sim for example shouldn´t care. The game takes to much time if you send all your teens.

Family sims go to get their MRS degree. Popularity sims go because their friends are going. Pleasure sims, okay, would probably blow it off unless their friends were going; but then they'd regret it 'cause they'd miss out on all the toga parties. And romance sims - c'mon! Never again will they have such a happy hunting ground!

There's definitely a reason for Sims of every aspiration to want to go to Uni, but dieKristina is right: it's one of those cookie-cutter rites of passage that undermines the Sims' individuality. There should be some combination of aspiration/personality/interests that doesn't roll the want to go or actively mourn when they age from teen to adult without attending Uni, like a lazy pleasure Sim with fewer than three interest points in school.

the cow plant is pretty cool

Agreed!

Funny how I have teens with the Pleasure aspiration who want to go to college, and when they get there, they constantly roll wants for Cut Class.

Popularity Sims want to be Big on Campus.

Well, school is not University, and vice versa. The first one is boring, the second is a ground open up to new possibilities. BUT, I will agree with the combination of lazy + Pleasure. Such a Sim would never find the way to the Campus anyway.

My Reasons for LOVING University:
-I love choosing out careers for my sims, but I often have multiple careers I want for them. I can satisfy myself if I get to pick out both their major and career.
-Majors are easy to create, if you use SimPE, like I do
-I love dorms. Dunno why.
-Fun choosing out their mates, since you have a wide selection hangin' at your dorm rather than waiting a full Sim week for only five passerbys to walk by your sim's house!
-Clothing included. I love the sundresses!
-CAS screen
-Being able to try and make my sims get on the Dean's List
-Wall Shower (MUCHO IMPORTANTE if you like creating or building stuff in the game!)

Well, I think it's a little boring for me because I like the family part of the gameplay, and I don't make young adult sims have babies to avoid bugs.
Lavaster, is that a joke or a mistake (MUY importante)?

I hate one thing about dorms: dormies are like pigs and leave the books lying on the floor! In a while your environment meter will be in red each time you step into that room. Even if you direct your sims to put away all books, stupid dormies will put new ones on the floor really quick.

If my sims are living in a dorm I put their bed in front of the door so the dormies can´t get outBut I guess they don´t suffer to much cause when I, after 20 sim days, let them out again they are alive.

Regarding which sims who should want/not want to go to Uni; I still think only knowlegde- and fortune sims should see it as a failure if they don´t go. Off course it can still be a bonus for every sim, but it´s not a disaster if they miss their chance. So I´m not saying that only knowlegde and fortune sims should have the wish, but those aspiration should be the only where not going is a failure.

Since english isn´t my best side I can´t describe more... But hope you understand what I mean:-)

Is skipping college a failure? I only have two sims who didn't go:Ginger Newson because if she and Gavin both went they'd be abandoning Gabriella and Gallagher to continue holding the family together without adult help; and Cooper Hawkins ostensibly because he felt his family needed him at home, but really because I needed somebody to rescue poor Ginger by marrying her, and didn't trust townies to do it. Ginger spends a lot of time fussing about a lot of things, but she's never expressed a regret at not going to University that I noticed. Cooper never fusses about anything except having to clean up and has never thought twice about it. I'm not sure he even put up a want to go. I suppose it's possible there's a specific red memory of missing their chances, but you can't take memories too seriously as a mark of what was really going on.

But it´s not just a memory like "had an accident". My sims that don´t go to Uni use to cry as much as when their mother dies. I don´t see it as a failure in itself (or for some people it´s a failure and for some it´s not). What I talk abouth is the way the sims act. They really act like something horrible has happend. What I´m trying to say is that I see that reaction
as logical for a knowledge sims but not for familysims.

Hmm...you're right, that extreme a reaction is odd; and it isn't universal, since my two didn't do that. (Both family sims.)

Actually I suppose that might have been one of the things Ginger was throwing a fit about shortly before she grew up, as she was going into aspiration failure and I stopped trying to keep track of what she was crying about. During that last day I finally managed to fulfill a high-point want so she grew up well, and since that time she's only gotten neurotic about identifiable things were going wrong on the lot. Cooper, who had already studied Lifelong Happiness, I think got a thought bubble about University at some point after growing up, but it didn't upset him - more of a shrug as he got on with his life down a different path.

So perhaps if you don't want to send someone to University you should have them study Lifelong Happiness as a kid or a teen so they won't have a problem?

Hmm studying Lifelong Happiness... It comes with AL doesn´t it? I don´t have that EP. But good to know anyway:-)

Lifelong Happiness has nothing to do with the "go to the College" wishes. It just helps a Sim to keep his/her aspiration bar at gold/platinum for longer than usual. That's all.

hmmm - regarding aspirations, nearly all my teens are what I think of as the immature aspirations: romance, popularity, pleasure. I see university, for many of them, as a period of growing up and realising what's important to them. Most change aspiration though I do like to have a significant proportion of immature adults in my neighbourhood so some stay as romance/pleasure/popularity. Some teens do get the other aspirations. It's usually obvious when a sim child is bookish and so they'd get knowledge and then again some sims are clearly destined to be greedy status hounds or like to mother their younger siblings and would get fortune or family but mostly they're romance/pleasure/popularity and then university gives them an opportunity to reassess their priorities (as it should do).

I don't know anything about the programming or mechanics, but my Lifelong Happiness sims freak out over Bad Stuff a lot less than those who haven't studied it. If the mechanic is that the mood decay is delayed, that probably means that they're in a better mood most of the time and so they feel disappointments less. So that would be any type of disappointment.

I can only tell you how it worked in my game. A sample of two is too small to generalize from, but since I like University so much I send everybody, it's all I've got.

Precisely.