<p>I' ve been looking at sooooo many MIT blogs about housing and the dorm websites and these are just a few questions that I still have. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>What is up with the RBA dorms like Maseeh and Next House? Is it still true that if you ate temped there during REX that you can't switch? And then after freshman year can you not switch out of those ( or it's really hard to switch out) ? I've heard mixed things about it. </p></li>
<li><p>Dorms that are considered to be far away from campus like Random, Next Simmons and Macgregor.... How far a walk/bike ride are they really from classes? And in the snow? </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Also if anyone has any general info or comments a prefrosh should know about Macgregor, East Campus, Simmons, Random or Next House, I would appreciate it thanks :)</p>
<p>The farthest dorm would be at maximum 5 minutes walking to 77 Mass. So you got nothing to worry. Also all the buildings are connected thru underground tunnels.</p>
<p>So, for clarification, I’m biased and I feel quite a bit jaded with my own dorm experience.</p>
<p>Anyways . . . I know that Maseeh students could not leave Maseeh this past year, I’m not sure if that applies for the following years. Next now allows people to switch out during REX and you can enter the lottery to switch dorms after that. The difficulty of switching out of a dorm depends on how many people want out vs in (if more people want to switch out of a dorm than into one, then it’s going to be difficult).</p>
<p>dorms that are far from campus are a pain, but it’s no deal breaker. It’s a decently fast walk (maybe 15 mins or so, at a pretty leisurely pace, from classes). Note that New House and Next House are further from Simmons, but walking along dorm row, imo, makes it feel like a shorter walk than to Simmons, which is extremely isolated.</p>
<p>And now, my commentary on my (soon-to-be-former) dorm, Simmons. I honestly did not enjoy it. I ended up on a very antisocial floor that was WAY too quite. It honestly felt almost like a trap of solitude in there. Now, if you’re the kind of person that wants a quite place to study, then maybe Simmons fits you (I personally like some noise around me when I study, but I’m the weird one in that). Now, I’ve heard good things about other floors in Simmons (mainly the ones that are dominated by freshmen), so maybe I was just an unlucky case.</p>
<p>Also, another note, meal plans at MIT (which you have to get if you live in a dining dorm like Simmons or Next) are ridiculously overpriced. Yes, it’s convenient for dinner, but I doubt that anyone actually eats a breakfast worth $9. I have yet to meet anyone who feels they’ve been able to eat their full set of meals. There’s plenty of food around campus (personally, I joined a frat that has lunch and dinner available, making the meal plan useless). and cooking for yourself is not that bad. The food in the dining hall is good, but nothing extra-ordinary and I personally don’t like the hs cafeteria feel of eating there.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve read that Simmons can be kind of antisocial, and from the pictures, it seems kind of like a maze and not like a typical dorm that tends to promote lots of socialization. That is something that I’d be worried about if I lived in Simmons.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure if you are temped in Next, you can switch out during REX. In the past, I believe, this was not the case - so, that could be the source of some conflicting information.</p>
<p>Hrm. I don’t think I’d like to be tied into something before I looked at all the options during REX, is it possible to switch into RBA dorms after you look at all of them during orientation?</p>
<p>^No, you can’t switch into or out of RBA dorms during rush (or any other time during freshman year). IMO, this makes RBA not worth it, but your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>I lived in MacGregor, and it was about a 10-minute walk to 77 Mass Ave, which I didn’t mind. Sometimes I took the Tech Shuttle (a campus shuttle that stops many places around campus) when I was feeling really cold-averse/lazy, but mostly I just enjoyed my walk. I had a bike my senior year, which was nice, but not necessary.</p>
<p>As someone who’s moved from Maseeh to Random, I can tell you that, if you find the right dorm culture for you, the walk seriously doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>lol well I’m not planning on picking a dorm based on how far I’d have to walk, I was just curious about how realistic the comments about such and such dorm being sooooo far from everything </p>
<p>Piper, what did you like about Random and why did you move out of Maseeh?</p>
<p>^ Ah. Well, the cold can be a pain, but it’s not anything to worry about ;)</p>
<p>So, Maseeh just opened this year, and I didn’t feel any sense of community. It’s very pretty and close to campus, but it just didn’t feel like home - definitely not worth the price of a dining hall.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, over the past year, I started hanging out at Random a lot. There are always people in various lounges and kitchens, tooling, hanging out, talking about nerdy and random topics. It just suits me :)</p>
<p>At least this year, I’m pretty sure I remember people moving in/out of Next during REX and Next putting on a ton of REX events as well. It is still RBA, but unlike McCormick and Maseeh (the other RBA dorms), I don’t think it has been a permanent assignment dorm for the last few years (unless this has changed again?): [REX</a> Now An Option for RBA Freshmen | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/rex_now_an_option_for_rba_fres]REX”>REX Now An Option for RBA Freshmen | MIT Admissions)</p>
<p>Next House participated in Rex during my year (this past one, I’m '15) and I was under the impression people could move in and out (I thought it was the exception of the RBA dorms where people might have to retain their RBA adviser, but not be physically in the dorm).</p>
<p>I’m coming from the perspective of someone who ended up switching after REX. I was originally in Simmons and the culture just didn’t fit me. I really wanted my dorm to be somewhere where I could find a real home versus just somewhere to live and Simmons just wasn’t that for me.
Originally EC wasn’t even on my radar because I have cat allergies and it seemed so crazy, but now I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Don’t be afraid that EC is always crazy 24/7, I live on a quieter tightknit floor, but I have friends on louder floors. I definitely think of EC as a home now and I love my floor.
But my point is that your mind can change from what you think you’ll like to the actuality of living there. If you come to MIT, take advantage of REX and be openminded to all of the dorms, because they just might surprise you.</p>
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