I'm running a minimegahood with all three unis attached, which has made me curious about what everyone else does.

Do your teens with a science bent attend La Fiesta Tech? Or just Strangetown kids, or aliens from any hood? Is Académie Le Tour for rich kids, private school kids, &/or those with A+ grades? Perhaps even if Dustin Broke turns his life around and makes A+ grades, Brandi can still only afford to send him to Sim State. Or, do you just attach one uni and have everyone go there?

I don't really have rules for it, I take a lot of things in consideration for each individual Sim. What you say is quite similar to how I play - probably the most stereotypical one.
Sim State is the most ordinary one, the one most students choose to go to.
Académie Le Tour and La Fiesta Tech are each more specific. Académie Le Tour is the most prestigious one for the rich kids and the overly ambitious, it's also the most pricey one.
La Fiesta Tech is more equal to Sim State regarding reputation or price, although it is viewed as more eccentric if anything else. I consider Strangetown and La Fiesta Tech to be pretty far away from the rest of the neighbourhoods, so it usually makes sense for Sims in Strangetown to attend La Fiesta Tech - also because most Sims in Strangetown are already very eccentric - however, some choose purposefully to move away out of the desert. Sims from other neighbourhoods on the other hand sometimes seek more isolated and interesting places and for those La Fiesta Tech is more appealing. Aliens almost always choose to stay in the desert because they can't fully integrate into the usual Sims community.
At each university Sims can study every major, so it's not like La Fiesta Tech is only science-related, however it does attract more Sims interested in science than the other universities. Académie Le Tour on the other hand attracts more Economics majors and so forth.

I have different grade requirements and tuition fees for the three, like you described. Also, because Académie is the most prestigious in my game, sims aren't allowed to go on probation there - if they fail a semester, they're kicked out.

In my game, the sims from Veronaville have always went to Académie Le Tour, the youngsters of Pleasantview to Sim State University and Strangetown sims to La Fiesta Tech, mainly because this way the Universities match the appearance of each neighborhood, in my opinion. I don't go by any other rules, such as which one costs the most etc

Because of play style all Sims go to Académie Le Tour. I prefer it because it has the highest number of dorms, and it doesn't glitch on me (I have a problem with Sim State that if I move a second Sim into a dorm, their college bar is glitched.)

I attached Sim State to Drama Acres more or less arbitrarily, LFT to Strangetown because of the desert, and ALT to Widespot because it was the one I hadn't played yet. In the Genderswapped Uberhood I'm playing a challenge, and decided to send the teens of related households to college "in the background," i.e. I won't be documenting them or playing to goals or in any strict rotation. When premades graduate in the course of this background play, I'll send them to live downtown, in order to accumulate another neighborhood full of sims and extend the Uberhood challenge.

With this in mind, I started by sending Dixie Land and Goldie Hart to SSU - again more or less arbitrarily - and, because Dixie in that iteration has a turn-on for aliens, I moved Sirius Terrano into the dorm with them. Goldie immediately wanted to pledge the sorority, and then, before Dixie could even be best friends with Sirius, proceeded to vamp him! So that bunch are on board now. Once the original SSU premades have graduated I can send people to LFT and ALT with those resident premades, and gradually add the bin students when and where it seems appropriate based on my knowledge of them. As with Sirius, I see no reason to restrict them by the campuses they started out with, but will probably put them in with sims I think they'll find compatible.

Strangetown is a tiny hood, and I want to keep it that way, but I also want to keep the Greeks open, and University is more fun with multiple households, so I recklessly used up Student Housing and Stella Terrano right away and it didn't take long to use up the student bin students there. So I then attached ALT and SSU and deleted them, leaving all those sims in the bin. Tom Freshe and Emily Lee are now sharing the Shifting Paradymes household with Ripp. I figure when I find myself staring down the maw of a stretch with no existing playable teens ready for college, I'll add a lump of sims who started in housing in one of those universities - probably SSU, because I love the Ruben brothers so much. Of course everyone has to be made over for the desert, which I have set to summer/summer/summer/winter - but that was true of most of the premades that originated in LFT, too.

I prefer to play vanilla economy, which means that university education is heavily subsidized by the state for the good of society (as well it should be) and there's not much reason for economic or class distinctions among colleges. Strangetown, Drama Acres, and Widespot teens go to their particular colleges because these are the ones serving their regions. I may find that a particular academic focus for different schools makes sense in the GSUberhood, where all the hoods are connected by a network of bullet trains, with Downtown as the transportation hub, making regional distinctions between communities on the same network minimal. In that case LFT should be a technical college, SSU a liberal arts one, and ALT fine arts. But apparently these distinctions haven't shaken out yet, because I've got technical majors alongside liberal arts ones at SSU. I suspect, from the way students from other campuses are wandering around on SSU lots, that the three schools are closely related geographically and share facilities - in which case I really should bulldoze redundant facilities (i.e. ones that annoy me by being too huge and impractical) and give each campus the buildings appropriate to their specialties. If I only liked building more...

In my uber-hood, I haven't yet sent any teens to college, so I'm still working out the details of who goes where. However, part of it is going to be based on my idea of the geographical locations of unis and sub-hoods. ALT is the northern college, closest to Riverblossom Hills and Desiderata Valley; SSU is in the thickly populated center, with Bluewater, Belladonna, and Downtown; Pleasantview and Veronaville are a bit south of that cluster, then comes LFT, then Strangetown.

Basically, teens who are close to their families will want to go to college near home, while teens on bad terms with their parents will want to go far away. Those who fall somewhere inbetween will be randomized. Where their significant other goes will also influence the matter - and I have my own rule that says all sims must look outside their own neighborhoods for long-term relationships. (If I want to marry off Johnny Smith to Ophelia Nigmos, I can just play Strangetown. The uber-hood is for cross-breeding, so to speak.) I may also take a look at what majors the pre-made uni sims are in, and see if there's a pattern, then consider one college to be well-known for its X program if there are several of sims in the X major there, and so on. I'll probably look at their bios and LTWs too, maybe even interests.

I basically have one custom university for my custom neighborhood because I wanted to start clean and its easier to handle one university rather than multiple. (I don't have to think about who needs to go where. They all end up in the same place, just different households!)

I only use Sim State and Académie Le Tour.

How Sims get in, is pretty straight forward - Académie Le Tour is considered an Ivy League university. Sims have to retain an A or higher their entire time in high school, participate in community service activities and have a certain amount of skill points to even be considered. Of course, being from a wealthy family who are seen as pillars in the community (Goth, Landgraab) helps as well.

To attend Sim State, a Sim only needs to retain a B- or higher.

Where a Sim attends college does matter as far as the jobs they are allowed to obtain upon graduation.

I take pretty much the same approach to Sim State and Académie Le Tour as PenelopeT seems to, and when it comes to La Fiesta Tech, I treat it as more of a community college/technical institute, just so that I have that aspect of a higher education open to my Sims (and to me, since it's a pretty different type of experience with how I portray it in my gameplay)

In my latest custom hood I also have just one custom university. I don't see the advantage of having multiple uni hoods. I prefer simple oversight.

I use all three. I can only stand so many university rotations, so each school has different rules about who attends and where they live. ALT is the elite Ivy League school. Students who attend ALT are from families who can afford it, or have lots of scholarships, straight As, have graduated from private school, etc. (This is why Francis Worthington isn't there: he got himself expelled from private school. It involved spray paint and the boys' bathroom.) There's no student family housing, so sims who have kids already can't attend. ALT is as much about who you know as what you know, so students there all live in one dorm (this is also a serious benefit because sims have brought career rewards from parents and grandparents with them). If a sim wants to go into politics, for example, ALT is the place to meet who they need to know. Students who fail a semester at ALT get kicked out, and can transfer to SSU.
SSU is exactly what its name says: a state university. Incoming freshmen live in the dorms. After freshman year they can stay in the dorms or go greek. If they're married or have kids then they can rent a house. A sim can get a solid education there. A sim who isn't up to the work at SSU can get transferred to LFT.
LFT is a tech school. Want to be a chef? This is where to go. As long as they don't flunk out they can study here. But there are limits on careers. A sim who graduates from LFT may be a nurse, but never a doctor (using the job stopinator on the simblender). Freshmen, again, live in the dorms. Sophomores stay in the dorms or go greek. Sims with families can rent a house.
Some sims might transfer the other way. Someone who goofed off in high school and went to LFT might get their act together and transfer, with straight As in college, to SSU. If they come from the right family, they might even transfer to ALT.

I use a semester hack for two day semesters. This lines up with my aging hack, Almighty Hat's proportional aging. Sims who don't go to college have an additional time period as independent teens thanks to Inteen, so everyone stays in sync. Stay in sync, you hear, you lot? There will be no unsynchronized sims around my game!

I have all 3 in my megahood.
I only really play 1 uni at a time (moving all new students to my current one), because I don't like the idea of over-crowding in my other hoods within 4 years (i.e. when all the uni premades graduate). At the moment I'm 1 rotation off finishing Sim State Uni, and will then be moving on to Académie Le Tour.

When all the premades have graduated, I'm probably going to work out who goes where based on how far away they want to live from their families.
To me, La Fiesta Tech is inbetween Strangetown and Veronaville, Académie Le Tour is near Veronaville and Belladonna Cove (though not slap-bang inbetween) and Sim State University is quite close to Pleasantview and close enough to Downtown that 'student nights' are a big thing downtown.
Though I haven't ever drawn an actual map of 'SimNation' so I haven't really finished deciding where these places are... so they might change round.

I tend to fall in the "richer Sims go to Académie / less wealthy go to Sim State" camp as well. Some of my favorite YAs, however, get to go to Brainania, which is an absolute delight to play.

Tricous all go to Académie. Yes, they are poor, but they are from an old family, and therefore squeak in thanks to "legacy" admission policies.

Fo the three base hoods, I only have one university per hood. In the other ones, the richest ones go to the Academie and everyone else goes wherever.

In my new hood the eldest of gen 2 is child aged so there is no uni as yet. Once they get close to leaving highschool I will be setting up a college in the main hood for sims wanting certificates and lower level courses. Attached will be a uni hood that I am going to make myself. I plan to have a medical school, a police academy and I'm not sure what else. The attached uni will have higher requirements than college at home. A sim will need at least 3 scholarships and a portfolio of there highschool project. I know I mentioned what those portfolios are only recently, can't remember what thread.
Main hood uni:http://www.insimenator.org/index.php/topic,96190.0.html
main hood Uni 2 http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...p?topic=12165.0

And here's an interesting idea... would zombie teens go to a custom university like... "Boo Doo U"?
( Sorry. Been watching a lot of Jan Valentine videos on youtube and he's crazy awesome for a bad guy. I mean, what's not to like about his Death by Konami line? )

I'm thinking i might do the same as an extra influence on where my simmies go (and i see the locations as similar - with Bluewater being near Pleasantview as well). As with real life i guess it will be a combination of location+finances+academics, + 'other' - such as a school being known for it's great parties .

I headcanon this would be la fiesta for some reason? Out in the desert with not much else around, lots of weird goings on, attracts an interesting crowd...? I imagine they probably have great visual and performing arts programs to go with their science focus.

Ooh i'd be interested to hear what you do differently? I do find uni in ts2 to be a bit tedious - probably partly because i am one of those controlling (benevolent simtator ) players who lets free will run but ends up running the game with frequent pausing XD.

That's what I kinda go for too.
Reminiscing my time finding a university, a lot of my friends went for what was closest and what they had the grades for (finances isn't really important over here) as well as what their siblings/boyfriend/girlfriend/parents went to. So I usually take that into account too. That being said, some sims tend to navigate far away from family, sometimes for a different experience, or sometimes just to get a way from family for a while. I think I put just as much thought into which university (as well as where they live afterwards - most tend to go to Belladonna Cove so far) as I did when working out what University I was going to.

I don't really have a grade system for certain universities in my game. Not sure if I'm going to incorporate that into my decisions. Maybe after all the premades have graduated I'll try to work something out.

University is free in my game so money doesn't come into it. I have the mod which changes which careers require degrees and makes some require a specific degree, which I've modded to my liking so I restricted subjects instead.

The admissions criteria are as follows:

Sim State: C or higher grade.
Available majors: Art, Philosophy, Psychology, Drama, Economics.
Career options: Art unlocks Architecture, Psychology unlocks Social Work (Intelligence) and can also unlock Animal Care (NatSci).
These degrees offer bonuses in the Art, Journalism, Music, Dance, Showbiz, Business, Paranormal, and Law Enforcement careers, variously.

Academie Le Tour: B or higher grade.
Available majors: History, Literature, Law (PoliSci).
Career options: History unlocks Archaeology (Adventure), Law unlocks Law.
These subjects offer bonuses in the Art, Journalism, Music, Education, and Politics careers variously.

La Fiesta Tech: A or higher grade.
Available majors: Maths, Physics, Biology.
Career options: Maths unlocks Game Design (Gamer), Physics unlocks Science, Biology unlocks Medicine (and can also unlock Animal Care).
These subjects offer bonuses in Education, Engineering (Entertainment), and Animal Care respectively.

Careers which require a specific degree don't have any bonuses attached since that would be pointless. If one can be unlocked with two subjects, one gives a boost. But most of the boost/advantages go to careers which don't require a degree, or one of the two (Politics and Education) which require any degree.

Students can transfer between universities. Sim State accepts any sim even if they are on probation. LFT requires at least a 3.0 GPA to transfer OR all required skill gates up to the current semester. ALT requires a 2.0 GPA and only the current semester's skill gates. New transfers are considered "on probation", except at SSU, where they'll only keep your probation status if you already had it.

Mostly just in terms of the neighborhood's arrangement, and then headcanon, like everything else- but I treat LFT not as a college campus, but as a small town with a community college "distance learning center" (basically a computer lab with a few "classrooms" that are basically just rooms with chairs and a career reward or two) near the center- (I scattered and redesigned most of the other "campus" buildings so that it didn't feel so much like an insular college campus)that means no dorms or Greek houses- everyone lives in rented houses, and most community lots are designed so that they'd just look like your regular small town businesses- not designed specifically to cater to college students like the lots you find at Sim State or Academie La Tour. As far as gameplay goes, this is also more likely to be the university where first-generation college Sims go, or Sims who have a poorer family and worse grades in highschool- basically, if the game says the can go to college, but I say they're a poor student, they go to LFT. I also treat some of the Sims here as if they were older (alas, the game doesn't let your adult Sims come back to school for any sort of continuing education program), since at least from what I hear from friends who've attended community college (I've never been- 4 years of state university for me), it's a much wider demographic mix than what you see at one of the state schools. Beyond that, it's up to just running different stories in my head- does this Sim have kids back home that they have to send money to? Are they in debt? Is this just a two-year program before they transfer over to Sim State? Etc... etc...

I love your idea for this uni neighborhood.

Back when I'd attach all universities to a neighborhood, La Fiesta Tech was considered the MIT type of university. However, I never ended up with enough Sims attending to make it worth keeping the hood added.

But, your idea/style of playing it sounds just interesting enough to try out.

I usually just try to balance things in my Megahood (thought LFT usually gets less students as it's smaller itself). Usually when I start a Megahood, I just move in the family bin househoulds together into large dorms in random groups - not influenced by their personalities or even which uni they were meant for (though I do try to keep it gender balanced for mixed dorms, or do gender separate dorms). Usually I get dorms with 6-8 rooms and use them all by my Sims so I don't get annoying dormies. I'll often keep siblings, good friends or partners together though (both at the same university and possibly at the same dorm), and when a Sim drops out/graduates/moves to a Greek house, I'll just move in a random freshman that's waiting for their space. So yeah, it's not really influenced by social class, major, etc. just where there seems to be the least students currently.