Whether considering living on or off campus next fall the advice from people in the know is: apply early!

Downtown realtors said apartments in State College are going fast, and earlier applications make for better chances to get the type of apartment desired.

For students who want to live in a dormitory, but missed the Feb. 24 deadline for housing contracts, hope still exists. Chris Hurley, assistant manager at the assignment office for campus residences, said the office is accepting contracts for temporary housing.

Hurley said students applying now should understand they are applying for temporary housing. The earlier they apply, however, the sooner they will get out of temporary housing in the fall. If students apply early enough, and enough vacancies are available, some students may even avoid temporary housing, Hurley said.

Mary Frantz, property manager at the Apartment Store, 444 E. College Ave., said apartment applications are coming in daily.

"If students wait until April, they will have very little to choose from," Frantz said. As of last month, Frantz said there were less than 70 vacancies left out of more than 600 undergraduate units with her company.

Betty Hartman, rental consultant at the Benchmark Group, 825 Bellair Ave., said the demand for apartments has been slightly greater this year than last. The company has a long waiting list for housing.

Hartman said 35 apartments were rented out during the first one and one-half weeks of the renting rush.

Elizabeth Winterburn (graduate-health education) said she received four responses on the first day her apartment advertisement appeared in the newspaper. One interested party saw her apartment on the same day the ad first appeared in the paper, she said.

For those who haven't found off-campus housing yet and are confused about how to begin the search, help is available.

Each year the Organization for Town Independent Students publishes an apartment list containing descriptions of the different types of apartments offered by realtors, said Tony Knific, an OTIS member.

Judith Falce, a member of OTIS, said most local realtors cooperate with OTIS to compile the list.

Falce said OTIS also has a list of all local realtors and conducts an annual survey of about 2,000 off-campus students. The survey asks students what building they live in and what they like and dislike. The results are available to apartment-searching students, in order to give them an idea of what the different complexes are like.

OTIS is also available to help students with problems associated with apartment living. If, for example, a student is having difficulty understanding a lease, they can take it to OTIS's office to get help, Falce said. The organization would help them if they could, or refer them to someone who could, she said.

Knific said the office also has a vacancy list which contains apartments currently available for rent.

Knific said all of the lists are located in the OTIS office at 101B HUB, but students must come in to see them as they cannot be removed from the office.