Despite the million-dollar vista, this is not the penthouse suite of a four-star hotel or a luxury condominium in the Back Bay. It’s the common room of a Boston University dorm, perhaps the most opulent residence hall to ever grace the local college landscape. Name tags taped to students’ doors say it all: “Skyview from the Center of the BUniverse.’’

“Sometimes I miss the elevator because I’m too busy looking out the window,’’ said Rina Beyda, a junior from Los Angeles and one of just 14 students lucky enough to land a room on the 25th floor, the highest residential level.

The view is not the only amenity. So luxurious is the 960-bed dorm that parents’ jaws dropped in disbelief when they helped their children move in last week. The suites of singles and doubles, with elegantly furnished common rooms, large private baths, walk-in closets, and floor-length mirrors, resemble nothing like what older generations remember of their college housing - sterile cinder-block boxes with institutional bunk beds and a communal bathroom down the hall.

“Life is tough,’’ said Laurie Hanafin, as she pushed a large orange crate full of her daughter’s belongings into her sixth-floor suite. “I’m going back to college. If there’s a martini bar, I’m staying.’’

No martini bar - after all, most residents are underage. But in addition to the panorama of the city skyline, students have access to a media lounge with a plasma TV for watching movies and playing video games.

Other amenities include soundproof piano rooms that allow students to practice without disturbing those studying in the 24-hour reading room, which is outfitted with plush adjustable furniture befitting a first-class airport lounge. The laundry room - with washers and dryers programmed to alert students via computer when they are available - overlooks the athletic field and stadium.

A trio of futuristic chandeliers hangs in the stairwell of the airy lobby. Newly potted lady-finger palms and creeping ficus fill giant stainless steel planters.

“Students want beauty, and they should have beauty,’’ Kenneth Elmore, BU’s dean of students, said during a tour of the dorm. With its hotel ambience, “the only thing we’re missing is music’’ - though he’s considering getting it piped in.

The completion of the glass-and-steel tower, known as Student Village II because it is the second residential tower to be built on the western reaches of campus, signifies BU’s decades-long transformation from a commuter school to a residential college. For the first time in recent memory, the university will be able to house all students who want to live on campus, nearly 80 percent of its 16,000 undergraduates; no one will be relegated to local hotels this year.

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