I'm finding it irritating that sims who go to university basically get longer lives than sims who don't, and am trying to figure out the best way to deal with this issue. Especially now that I've installed Lamare's set of mods that allow YAs on campus to get pregnant and raise children and so on while they are at school.

I'd like to figure out a way for my sims who don't go to university to stay in sync better, age-wise, with the ones who do. I suppose one option would be to use the sim-blender to age the no-uni sims down a couple of times, but that seems clunky and hard to keep track of.

I remember reading on here a while back about a mod that allows sims to age up to young adult and stay living in the main neighborhood with the option of going to community college as their job. Maybe it was squinge's set of college mods?

It would be cool to have young adults be able to live in the main hood, and either go to college or get a job.

What do people think would be the best way to achieve this?

How do you handle this age discrepancy in your game?

Personally my Sims only stay on Campus long enough fro me to use the college adjuster, cheat them up to their final semester and then pass their final exams. Then it's calling a cab back to the neighbourhood.

Before I had the college adjuster I treated College as outside of rotations. As in I only played the Sims in college from arrival to graduation and only then returned to the neighbourhood, so they never got out of synch.

I have young adults who go to uni and some who remain in the main hood. All of them whether at uni or not have 10 days as YA. You can mod your game to however you want it to be.

I use Squinge mods for those going to community college in the main hood. (uni from home) Sqinge's cake give the 'went to uni' memory.

For those who are not doing UNI at all but are say run a business I age them with the simblender. This gives no 'went to uni' memory. No need to age them down, simply age them to young adult. Now doing this you do need to be prepared. They will try to go to class on you, so you have to stop that. You also need to keep track of their days as they will have a uni bar. Normally I buy 10 really cheap plants and place one down for each day at 6am.

For uni I use cyjon's semester changes mod. They have 8 days to complete class then I let them have 2 days of free time.

Thanks so much, @joandsarah77 -- that's a lot like what I want to do, so this is really helpful!

I just make Sims who go to university some days older after they leave. With the default age lengths, it'd be one day older per semester attended, minus one day. Sims who went through the Teen stage, however, will be credited however many days they had left in the Teen stage when they enrolled. For example, a graduate who never goes on academic probation will be seven days into the Adult stage upon returning to the main neighborhood, before any adjustments for remaining Teen days.

Oh yes academic probation, I forgot about that. If that happens I make the sim a bit older as an adult.

Have to agree with Jo; using mods to make sims age to YA in the main hood is my go-to plan. But, as G-Mon points out, you can also use mods to add or subtract days, too. Uni is a set amount of days, so it's not too hard to figure out how many extra days to add to sims. My preference is to give everyone more time so, if you don't like playing the YA stage in the main hood, I would add the extra days to sims' adult stage when they age up from teen to adult. (Default uni is 24 days for each semester, plus another 3 for the post grad period, so 27 extra days. If you modded the length of uni, use that total.)

Also, sometimes I think simmers forget that the easiest way to keep ages in sync & to track aging is to send everyone to uni at the same point in time and to send everyone home from uni at the same point in time. Obviously, you might have some exceptions here and there, especially if you let sims drop out, but generally things are easier if you stick to a rule where teens only get sent to uni at a specific point in their life stage. For me and the way my sims' lifespans are set up, teens go on the last day before they age up. For you, it could be three days before, or two before--whatever. Just make it consistent across the board, so that you know how many days you need to add/subtract. Similarly, when sims graduate, make sure they are all leaving at the same time. Maybe everyone leaves immediately after graduation, maybe everyone stays the full 3 days, or maybe you don't count the 3 post graduation days at all, because you want time to throw graduation parties. Whatever the rule is, just make it consistent and know what it is for your lifespan, to keep ages in sync/at the right number. I should also mention that I use BoilingOil's Phones for All, so sims later in the rotation can still call bin sims. That'll help, because then you can move sims out without worrying whether sims who are played later in the rotation can still call them and invite them over.

Next, I would also suggest getting the lot sync timer because, as Jo points out, it can be easy to forget how long a sim has been a YA in the main hood. With the lot sync timer, you can add an event to remind you when to grow your sim up, or you can just use it as a day tracker, to know how many days have passed since a sim became a YA or how many days have passed on the current lot compared to other lots.

Finally, take notes! Write down somewhere (excel, your phone, in the sim bio, etc.) when sims are moving out of places (the day & time) and how old they are when they are moving. That'll help you to figure out what's what. If a sim is super smart and goes to uni early, write down when they went and what age they were when they moved out. Same goes if a sim is kicked out of uni or drops out or for any other deviation in your set lifespan. Then you know how many days to add back later.

For non-YA sims on campus or YA living in the main hood with non-YA sims, I turn aging off until the YA sim completes a year of school, then let the rest of the family age up one day per school year.

For families and friends who stay home, versus the ones who go off to uni, I try to limit how often I play their house while the sim is away at university so there's not a huge discrepancy.

The entire plane of existence is 4th dimensional broken.
It may once have had time flowing equally but if so that is definitively no longer the case.

Men grow old while their parents stay young.
Ordinary Sims live longer than eternals.
One is stuck at uni for what feels like an eternity mets old university friends' children and grandchildren.

I don't play rotation or even remotely chronologically so it doesn't bother me and is probably one of the least inconsistent time gaps in my hood.
I'd blame the timetravelling sims hiding in my hoods but it could just as likely be Dr Vu trying to sell his ice cream.

^ *Runs screaming from the room*

For the most part all my sims go to college in some way or another, I did get that mod by Squinge that allows community college lots int he main hood. IF I was to ever start letting sims just go back to aging from teen to adult, I would probably have their aging off or have them age down to 0 adult days played once a sim equivalent of their age graduated so they were even.

I just decided that one sim day is one year, and so obviously one year at university is one sim day. So no matter if they leave for university or not, my teen sims grow up on the same day. It worked for the twins where one stayed home to take her of their aging mother (meaning I was worried she'd die before her children returned).

I use BoilingOil's age controller and have my sims aging 3x/week. I play households in the regular 'hood by seasonal rotations. Sims that are sent to university go once they are half way through the age bar at the end of a rotation. Sims that stay home are independent teens. During the next rotation, sims in the main 'hood are played one season, while all university sims get 3 semesters. Depending on the day the seasons started and the day they became teens, there will be a little bit of variance in the total days lived when the graduates return after 3 rotations, but not much. I also use twojeff's age duration hack, which changes the length of the adult life stage depending on the aspiration level when the sim ages up and shortens the elder life stage (instead of the elder's life stage length being dependent on aspiration). So far, I haven't really noticed a difference between the two groups of sims - some in either group just age to elder a bit earlier than others, just as some people seem to age faster than others.

I use almightyhat's aging mod that makes everything equal in terms of pregnancy, aging, college, etc. It makes things...long but there's less book keeping required, I guess.

I just age sims according to my whims and my stories and, otherwise, aging is off. Dirk Dreamer is the only YA I ever sent to college and he's been there for eons because I don't enjoy playing over there. I'm starting a college-from-home thing now. Like Sims2Christain, I don't play chronologically. This way of playing can get a bit weird, I guess, with Dustin becoming an adult but Brandi never aging, with Newson kids still toddlers in one hood, but children in another. Angela was dead six years and came back as an adult, but Lilith never aged a day until she died much later as a teen in the prequel ... Probably the weirdest is I have a baby version of a child in one hood, who exists as a child much later in another hood, but was born later than the child version, because she's just an actor playing the child version... it's all fine, it's all explained in the stories.

I admire your courage...seriously.

I've not played that way (in many many years) since mods became available to help make keeping things in sync easier...even when rotational play gets out of sync for whatever reason. So, even though I could never go back to playing that way, it's nice to see someone having fun playing their game old-school style.

Fun fact: Before mods and rotational play were a thing, I used to kill off sims who were not playable and had been around too long. None of that teenaged sims being able to miraculously be schoolmates with their grandparents old schoolmates nonsense for my game.

For me I treat each year at collage as 1 day in the main hood.
Send teens to collage play them till the end then play the main hood for 4 days and at that time I send the students back home.

In my game, university is equal to 6 days main-hood time. Those who go get aged up 6 days with the SimBlender after they return home. (If they drop out or fail out before the end of Sophomore year, they only get aged up 3 days.)

I add 6 days in total for anyone who finish (and proportionally to this for those who drop) the college and do not return them to the main hood before locals properly age, and I don't allow student's babies - if any happens - to reach the "kid" state. They stay toddlers 'till parents returns. Spouses/partners which live with family on campus have the age corrected accordingly. It leads for some minor quirks but I can live with that.

I age all sims to young adults whether they go to college or not.

At the moment, I play my sims by season - so it's a 5 day rotation with aging one. Then I play them another 5 days with aging off. Only pregnancies, babies and toddlers advance during the aging off process.

For the YAs, they will head to university at the end of their season in which they are still teens. Sometimes this is 4 days to adulthood, other days 1, but I just ignore that minor discrepancy.

I play 2 years of Uni and then go back to the main hood and play another season, and then conclude the 2 years of Uni with the new YAs who graduated during the last season.

After year 3&4, the YAs go back to the main hood before the rotation starts. So they are effectively away only for one season (10 sim days).

If they have any babies while on campus, they cannot age beyond the first day of childhood if born in first year, beyond toddler for 2nd year, and are a baby for 3rd or 4th.

Now to expand on why I use 1 day that = 1 year.


From the wiki https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Life_stage
There are seven life stages in The Sims 2.

Baby: (3 days) I age up babies when it tells me they have 1 day left. = 2 days.
Toddler: (4 days) Same here when it tells me they have 1 day left I age them up with a cake. = 3 days.
Child: (8 days) And again age up with cake when it tells me 1 day left. = 7 days.
Baby - child = 12 days = 0 - 12 years old.

Teen: (up to 15 days) Note: With University, teens can grow up early in order to go to college. Now for teens, if I want them to go to collage I let them go after they get all skills to 8. This is normally done by the first week of teenhood. Or 7 days. Now age from baby to teen going to collage = 19.
Young adult: (varies; usually 24 days) University only. Lasts until the Sim leaves the college sub-neighborhood. Collage is a little more than 72 hours per college semester because finales are longer than 2 hours and at the end you can stay at collage for 4 more days before you have to leave so it becomes close to 29-30 days and that is the same amount of time adults have so we can not use day for day and is why I use each collage year as 1 day in the main hood. So 4 days.
Teens who don't go to collage I age up the day it says they have 1 day left. (This is the only one that is outside of the aging system I use, these teens just get a little bit more time to be teens.) (These are the ones who normally get hit with the risky woohoo and I make them get married and go to work instead of going to collage.)
Adult: (29 days) For adults and Elders age up when they do.
Elder: (varies; range is 9—31 days) Sims who have higher aspiration levels when aging generally get more time, but there is a random element. Followed by death.

I send my teens off to uni when they're 6/5 days (as in 6 before 18pm, 5 after) from becoming an adult. Semesters are 1 day long, and usually I play 1 day rotations BUT I play two for university just because it seems a bit ridiculous to play 12 hour semesters and the 6/5 days thing works because InTeen turns my teens into "independent teens" when they're around 7/6 days, so non-university go-ers can still move out on their own and get married or have a fulltime job.
They age like this compared to teens that don't go to uni:
6/5 days - Orientation (I move them to uni, then at the end of the rotation move them into a sorting house, change their clothes, pick majors and send them to their dorm/greek/house)
5/4 days - Freshmen
4/3 days - Sophomore
3/2 days - Junior
2/1 days - Senior / graduate - the same day teen sims from the main hood become adults.

It looks a little weird if there's a set of twins, where one goes to college and the other doesn't, so one is a young adult and the other is an adult, but they both grow up at the same time so it's just a few rotations - no big deal.

Teens in my 'hoods are sent off about a day before they become adults. My uni semesters are the default, so 6 days, and that's how long my college rotations are.

If a teen Sim is set to be heir of their household and their parent/s will die of old age before they graduate, then I don't play the parents' household until the student has graduated and can come home. If there are younger Sims in the household, or other adults who can hold the fort until the heir returns, then I will continue playing that household.

With the exception of the above, everyone else in the 'hood ages as normal (sometimes there are stoy-related reasons for me to temporarily 'freeze' a regular household for the sake of a uni student, though). If a Sim doesn't go to college, or drops out, I'll play them even if it means they wind up older than someone they were originally younger than. I like to think of Sim aging as a bit more abstract: Everyone ages differently based on their life experiences. Once they become elders, they all have individual expiration dates, so what difference does it really make at that point? As long as siblings stay in the same order, it doesn't matter much to me.

What mods do you use? I've done a bit of looking on my own and I haven't really found much, so I don't think I was looking in the right places.