The University of Iowa

Date: Oct 23 2011
Major: Biology (This Major's Salary over time)
Overall an ok school, but I know many people who have gotten in trouble for stuff they didn't do. A freshman I know was recently fined $300 for his roommate having a couple of beer cans in the room and a small amount of hard liquor that he didn't even know was there (apparently some friends of the roommate brought it in earlier in the day). The other kid was gone all day and went out at night to skate board (hadn't been drinking or anything illegal). He came back around 1 am to go to bed, saw the beer can (it was empty and the other one the RAs found was in the roommate's fridge-they had separate fridges). As he was getting ready for bed, the roommate drunk friend came in as some RAs were doing rounds and he ended up getting fined because there was alcohol in the room even though none of it was his and he hadn't been drinking at all. They said he was in trouble for not reporting it to his RA. Note his RA never enforced the alcohol policy to begin with, so it would have been really weird for him to go report to his RA that he noticed an empty beer can in the room (it was not his RA that reported this incident, but rather 2 other RAs from the building). So if you ever notice an empty beer can in your dorm room, make sure you report it to your RA right away…even if your RA does nothing about kids drinking beer. Oh and then when he requested to switch roommates he was told that was not a possibility (Well he could be put on a wait list for who knows how long) and instead he should have a "heart to heart" with the roommate who really had no interest in following the no alcohol in dorm rooms policy. So, basically, if you choose to go to the U of I you're pretty much responsible for your randomly chosen roommate's actions in your room, whether you know about them or not. Although, you are (kind of) in luck because they don't actually report these alcohol-related incidents to the police. Instead, the U of I just makes lots of money from them…which kind of seems like a conflict of interest to me at the very least, but that's another rant. When he went to appeal the fine, he was told before he even started the process (some staff member…I'm not sure who exactly), that there was no way he would win the appeal, so he shouldn't waste his time. Sure enough, while whoever makes appeal decisions "sympathized" with his situation, they said they couldn't make individual exceptions to the policy, so he would still have to pay the $300 and have the incident on his disciplinary record at the school. So, basically, no one has the authority to use common sense and treat individual situations individually at this school. And while they can sympathize with students treated unfairly, they can't actually do anything to remedy them. I've heard of quite a few other similar situations as well, but this is the one of which I know the most details and am sure all the details are correct. But, anyway, just something to think about before choosing U of I. Don't have any other major complaints about the school, but just wanted to share this.