Hi, I'm a first year medical student at CCOM. I live in the traditional (cheap) dorm. I think it's cheaper by about 1000 dollars or so than the higher end ones.
What you want to do is to live in the cheaper dorm, if you want to save money.
Buy yourself a good fan, and a space heater. There is no AC in the cheaper dorm. That said, the cheaper dorm was originally built to house 2 students, so it's very roomy. 2 closets, 2 desks, 2 chairs, 2 sets of drawers. I recommend the fan, because there is no AC in the beginning hot months. Who knows what spring will be like? Haven't been there yet. The space heater, because they don't necessarily pump up the heat when the weather is phasing in from autumn to winter, bitter winter. It takes a while for them to heat it up for some reason. About 3 days?
If you want to live comfortabley in the dorms, you want to go for Redwood 1, not Redwood 2. Redwood 2 is more expensive, and the walls are thinner, so you can hear and get annoyed by your neighbors. The advantages of Redwood in general: Most everything is new. You get A/C, you get heat, you get a study lounge in every floor, where you can control the thermostat, you get a kitchen/laundry room, you get a trash chute (the traditional dorms make you throw away your own trash outside), you get a study area in the 1st floor, and also study areas in other places, too. You may never have to make that trip to the library and study comfortably outside of your room, where you may or may not fall asleep. But, pony up for an extra 1000 or so, for Redwood vs the Cheap ones.
In my opinion, the luxury is only valued at about 500 dollars or so to me, so I'm going to continue living in the traditional halls next year, as a 2nd year medical student.
Get yourself a used car, because the bus system is virtually non existant. They only run basically during rush hours to get people from and to commuter train stations. Yorktown and Butterfield shopping centers are close enough to order the local taxi around at around 5-7 dollars one way, and load yourself up with needs that exclude fresh groceries, such as vegetables and fruits. Ironically, the supermarkets are much further away. I'd say the taxi meter would run up to 12 dollars one way. The school says Chicago, but it's really a suburb, so don't expect great mass transportation. So, get yourself a used car, because you might find it useful when you have to drive yourself to do extracurriculars, such as shadowing a doc, learn how to do stuff in a clinic--in Chicago (the city), and drive yourself to events outside of the Downers Grove campus, which is really sitting in a place where people build nice houses on.
