Playable teens/ya all in the same dorm?

[PlayLives]

How do make teens (that I control) from different families go to college and all live in the same dorm?
Will I then be able to toggle between all of them?

Thanks.

[Emma]

You need to gather them in a group from your neighbourhood screen. If you click on the families button, there is an option there that says 'send teens to college' when you mouseover. You click on that and a box pops up with all the eligible teens from your neighbourhood (including NPC's and townies) and you can put them in a household of up to 8 teens.

[SaraMK]

You can also send them to Uni separately, and then merge them into one dorm. First put one sim into a dorm, then exit to the neighborhood and put the rest into the same dorm. It will ask if you want to "merge households" and you just say Yes to that.

[Emma]

Oh, and yes! You will be able to select each sim while in live mode

[PlayLives]

thanks. so SaraMk, I can keep putting my playable teens one by one into the dorms until all of them are in?
Do I have to assign a room for each one before I back out to neighborhood/university view and add the next one?

Emma, If I decide to put them in a household (of up to '8') all at once do I have to give the household a name or will the game choose a last name from one of them?

[MissDoh]

You can add them all in the dorm and then only load it so your Sims can select a dorm room.

You will need to choose a household name otherwise the game won't create that household.

[simmiecal]

thanks. so SaraMk, I can keep putting my playable teens one by one into the dorms until all of them are in?
Do I have to assign a room for each one before I back out to neighborhood/university view and add the next one?

Emma, If I decide to put them in a household (of up to '8') all at once do I have to give the household a name or will the game choose a last name from one of them?

If you use "send sims to college" from the main neighborhood, it will group the teens together but will not check for scholarships if you haven't done that already. If you group them together in the main hood, it will create one "family group" in the university neighborhood which you can just move into a dorm.

_Or, individually in each house in the hood, have each teen call up the college and move to university. When you go to the university neighborhood screen, you will see each sim by themself in the bin. Pick one and move into a dorm. As soon as you get into the dorm, immediately save and go back out to the neighborhood screen. Pick a second sim to move into the dorm and "merge households" when prompted. You will not go into the lot but will stay in the neighborhood screen when this happens. Keep adding your playable sims, up to 8 or however many your system can handle. Remember that in larger dorms that will contain nonplayable sims, your system resources are still used with the non-playable sims. Even though my system exceeds specs for the game, large dorms really bog down on my computer (community lots in the main hood with the same number of sims don't seem to have the same problem that the dorms do).

If you put them together as a group in the main hood, you can pick a "house" name for the group. If you add them one by one, the first sim added gives their last name to the lot - but don't worry that's just what the lot is called, all your sims retain their own names.

After you've gotten all your sims into the dorm (regardless of what method they choose) it's usually a good idea to assign a dorm door to them. They can lock it for privacy. It's not imperative. I played several dorms before I found out about assigning and locking the doors - it doesn't hurt anything if you don't do it but it can be a big help if you do.

[PlayLives]

thanks all of you.

So now if I choose the group method or one-by-one method how do I assign scholarships?
Does each sim apply for one before they go to college or will the game automatically give them one based upon teen stats?

(I just got Univ which is why I have so many questions)

[simmiecal]

thanks all of you.

So now if I choose the group method or one-by-one method how do I assign scholarships?
Does each sim apply for one before they go to college or will the game automatically give them one based upon teen stats?

(I just got Univ which is why I have so many questions)

Regardless of which method you choose, you have to have the teen call the college and apply for scholarships. There is an option on the phone (and on the computer if the lot has one) where you apply for scholarships. You can also review the scholarships that the student has already been awarded (from previous phone calls). Some - like the good grades scholarship - can be taken away if the conditions change between the time of the phone call and when you send them to college. If I remember right, any skill where the teen has 8 or more skill points will earn a scholarship. If you don't play with money cheats, the scholarships are a little bit more important than if you cheat with money. Each semester at college, they get money based on their GPA and it costs nothing to move into a dorm so a student can be broke and still go to college.

[simmiecal]

You need to gather them in a group from your neighbourhood screen. If you click on the families button, there is an option there that says 'send teens to college' when you mouseover. You click on that and a box pops up with all the eligible teens from your neighbourhood (including NPC's and townies) and you can put them in a household of up to 8 teens.

Just to add on -
If you select an NPC to go to college with your playable sims, or even if you just pick NPCs, they will become selectable in Uni. The game generated dormies and secret society members are like the NPCs in Uni. But anyone you select from the main hood to go to Uni will be a selectable sim in Uni. This is how (without hacks) you can age-up some of the teens like Meadow Thayer.

[PlayLives]

Yeah but then I will have to play them through college right? which I don't want to do.

[Emma]

What did you want to do with them once they were in college?

[simmiecal]

Yeah but then I will have to play them through college right? which I don't want to do.

Anyone you send to college can always drop out. Also, anyone you send to college, you don't have to "play". Selectable sims that are sitting in the bin or in lots you aren't currently playing are like NPCs - they show up on the community lots and walk by. But you're basically right, if you don't like the townie enough to play them, you probably won't want to send them to uni.

Some sims that start a relationship with a townie (you know - those romance or family teens) and you want the sims to keep the relationship, the teens won't ever age if you don't send them to uni. Your palyable sim will be an elder and their former teen crush would still be a teen. It does get kind of creepy when the same teen NPC has a romance with the grandchild of your playable sim that had a relationship when that playable sim was a teen.

[PlayLives]

Emma, i meant i only wanted to play my sims through college. I didn't want to bother playing a townie through. However, i didn't think about Simmiecal's advice where I could send them to age them up but then have them drop out.

[simmiecal]

Emma, i meant i only wanted to play my sims through college. I didn't want to bother playing a townie through. However, i didn't think about Simmiecal's advice where I could send them to age them up but then have them drop out.

Just so you know - when they drop out, they return to the neighborhood as playable sims and instead of getting an additional want slot, they get an additional fear slot (because they dropped out). There are several mods (like Inge's brush) where you can turn them back into townies - and you might be able to turn them back into townies using the tombstone of life and death (not sure about that one). But if you are ok with using hacks and just want to age up the teen, you can do that with several hacks and not even bother with college for them. Most people who use college to age up townies either do not want to play with hacks or want to preserve a relationship between a townie and one of their playable sims.

[Sagana]

If you have NL, you should be able to do it with the agesims cheat too, I think, tho I haven't actually tried it.

[PlayLives]

Okay thanks for all of the ideas, I forgot about age cheats and stuff.