Here's the general rundown of where people live at ut in order of increasing distance from the pharmacy building(s) [i still dunno if they're one or two...they have that skywalk between them i guess]. Don't worry about finding grocery stores or some other essential service, most places are at most a 5-10 minute drive from someplace acceptable.
North Campus:
Expensive, not much renovation but very close and much quieter than west campus. Whereas west campus is peppered with greek letters and party spots (which can be good or bad depending on your preference) north campus has churches and middle-class houses. The apartments I'd reccommend looking into the La Fiesta apartment complex or the buildings near there. They're cleaner then most and some are very close to the pharmacy school (10-15 minute walk) and those that are not so close have shuttles that run very regularly. There are a few small houses and apartments (Windsong and Blackstone) literally across the street from campus but these border a very busy road (Dean Keaton) and their rents generally don't take this into account. One place of interest is an old lady who rents rooms in her house out for 400 a month on Medical Arts Road, its decorated like its the 60s (and last cleaned then as well) so maybe that'll interest you.
West Campus:
Very expensive, lots of new and modernized apartments are being built to replace the more rundown and unfortunately more affordable places. Pretty noisy and lively, you'll meet a lot of interesting (more often than not drunk) characters in west campus. I'd reccommend avoiding 22nd and 23rd street because those are sort of higher crime areas and are pretty far away from campus though they are cheaper. Look into the condos at Croix (10 minutes walking from pharm school, 5 from campus) or St Thomas Apartments; pretty nice condition and accomodations. if you're looking for brand new digs then try Sterling University Housing, Quarters, or Texas Towers; these are expensive but pretty much mint condition establishments.
East of I-35
I live here and generally it has a bad reputation because its sort of a low income area but crime is generally lower than that of Riverside and some places in West Campus. Very quiet and if you know where to look it can be very affordable and comfortable. My roomates and I knew our landlord prior to college so we each have a sizeable room in a house with some sort of unneccesarily giant yard and driveways for very low rent. Walking is a bit of a pain (25-30 minutes to pharm school) but there are regularly running buses and its only a 10 minute drive to the parking garage directly across the street from pharm school. The further north you go on the east side of I-35 the nicer and more affordable the properties generally become but then you start putting yourself pretty far away.
Far West
The apartments on Far West boulevard are all marketed towards young professionals so they're generally much nicer than anything you can find adjacent to campus. I went apartment shopping out here in the summer and the staffs are very nice and receptive, the rooms are clean and spacy, and most apartments have pools or tennis courts or weight rooms or clubhouses or a combination of those that are kept in good condition. Its also cheaper than most places including West and North campus. I don't have a specific reccommendation for this region because all of the places are pretty similar. A campus bus runs out there every 15-20 minutes and there's a bus stop every...100 feet or so (no joke, from some bus stops you can see one or two other bus stops for the bus you're about to get on). Also its very close to a medical clinic if you get sick and is also very near Loop 1 Mopac Highway if you want to drive to somewhere in Austin.
Riverside
Cheap, large rooms, near lots of other students so you won't feel out of place, quieter than West Campus. The apartments themselves are kept in good condition and generally arranged into huge collections of 20~ buildings. The two major things that keep people away are the distance (15 minute bus ride north to campus) and its reputation as a high-crime area. While statistically crime is higher out there and everyone has a handful of horror stories about experiences of people living in Riverside in general its not as threatening a place to live as its reputation indicates. It is not too pretty, the 5 mile stretch from the most popular collection of apartments (Campus Estates and etc) is a pretty rundown part of town. Despite all this its still a very popular place for UT students to live.
Campus
If you don't mind living in a dorm you might mind living in a UT dorm. They're expensive and small and old (except for San Jacinto and the new Duran buildings which are more expensive, tiny, and new). Non-campus dorms are pretty much the same story. I always hear stories about how much more comfortable dorms at places like Texas Tech, UTD, and A&M are and I can safely safe UT's dorms are bearable but not ideal. The only real advantage is that they're a stone's throw from the pharmacy buildings (and if you've got a strong arm and live in Kinsolving or Littlefield thats not a metaphor).
Those are pretty much where most folks live; there are some students that live near Lake Austin and others that live very far north up by Braker Lane and Great Hills Trail but I don't know too much about student properties in those areas. Look around. Note of caution though, if you're the type of person to hold out until pretty late in the summer to find housing as a strategy to take advantage of apartments lowering their prices to get rid of vacant units don't try that in West and North Campus. The extensive construction efforts in those areas have made that particular game very risky, you may run the risk of not finding somewhere suitable to live or worse ending up somewhere that is just awful. Good luck and congratulations on your acceptance.
