<p>Are there any all male dorm wings, floors or even rooms? Can a student have a say in picking a roommate? I can't find that information on the HMC website.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I don’t believe there are any all male dorms, floors or wings, but rooms are only coed if everyone agrees. I am not sure whether a coed room is available for freshmen. Incoming students fill out a questionnaire to match roommates. I think it works pretty well. After the first year, students usually pick roommates in the room draw process.</p>
<p>all male suites are common in the dorms with suites (which are linde, atwood, sontag, and south)</p>
<p>Ok, thank-you for the response. It sounds like most (all?) colleges have students fill out dorm preferences. This is good to know.</p>
<p>To clarify: There are two types of “suites” at Mudd: suites with a common room and common bathroom (the dorms maruhan identified) and suites that share a common bathroom (the inner dorms besides south). There’s also Case, which has "L"s of about 30 people who share 3 common bathrooms.</p>
<p>Freshmen are always placed with same gender roommates, but may be in a mixed-gender suite. Freshmen can opt out of mixed-gender suitemates on their housing form.</p>
<p>After freshmen year, students choose their roommates and rooms–priority is determined by a combination of class year, lottery numbers, and arcane dorm-specific rules. Housing is gender neutral, so rooms may be mixed-gender. The Deans of Students discourage this for heterosexual students, but there are always a few cases of platonic friends rooming together. There are also procedures in room draw for creating a same-gender suite, although they are not often used. Same gender halls are nonexistent (theoretically possible in Case I suppose).</p>
<p>Overall, expect to be interacting with both genders at your dorm. Generally though, you won’t have to deal with unisex bathrooms unless you’re in Case.</p>
<p>On a related theme - would anyone care to post a thumbnail of the dorm personalities?</p>
<p>There have been more detailed descriptions posted before in this forum, but in a very quick and overgeneralized manner:
North: Athletic
East: Nerdy
West: Loud noises and fire
South: Quiet, quirky
Linde: West-like, with less fire
Sontag: Senior retirement home
Case and Atwood: No overarching dorm personality</p>
<p>Hmm, what about a very social, fun loving nerdy athletic musician-type Christian who doesn’t drink? Dorm ideas?</p>
<p>They have a questionnaire for you to fill out and I’ve heard they do a wonderful job putting kids in the best place.</p>
<p>@sbjdorlo</p>
<p>Case sounds like the place for you.
So does Sontag</p>
<p>East may also be a good match. Lots of non-drinking activities there, with an active dorm community.</p>
<p>Keep in mind again that what I posted were just the general stereotypes. I hesitate to try and give more in-depth and real descriptions of each dorm, as I’m obviously going to be bad at dorms I don’t spend a lot of time in. GeekMom63 is correct though, you’ll be pretty safe with the dorm/roommate matching form.</p>
<p>The questionaire works like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter. From what I have seen, it does a pretty good job of matching dorms and roommates.</p>
<p>This sounds very good! I like the idea of the questionaire and appreciate the attempt to match roommates with common interests. My son was scheduled to go visit Harvey Mudd for Spring FAST but had a conflict in his schedule. He’s going to apply for Fall FAST. If he gets accepted, I think he’ll get to stay overnight and will maybe get a little feel for the dorms.</p>
<p>Case is my first thought too, but with the right attitude at the start of the semester, your son could probably end up happy anywhere.</p>
<p>Though it’s fun to think about, your son shouldn’t worry too much about the dorms. He doesn’t have any say in which dorm he’ll end up in (unless he has strong food allergies or medical issues, in which case he’ll probably end up in Sontag), so it’s not a good idea to get too attached to any certain dorm. I thought that I would be a Southie based on the dorm stereotypes from the tour and CC, but I ended up being very happy in East my freshman year. </p>
<p>Like azalia said, the matching form is a very good sorting hat. Specific dorm requests are likely to be ignored*, but everything else is followed as closely as possible. For example, all of my friends who asked for Christian roommates ended up with exactly that. My frosh roommate and I agreed on everything important (sex, bedtime/lights, cleanliness, not-talking-when-I’m-trying-to-work) at the beginning of the year, and stuck to our original agreements when only one person’s views on some of those things changed. </p>
<p>*Perhaps this is too strong of a statement. If you talk about fire and destruction, and you’ll end up in West. Talk about needing to cook to fit your vegetarian needs, and you’ll stand a good chance of getting Sontag. But if you say “put me in West” but that you need a quiet environment to sleep and will be going to be going to bed at 10 every evening, forget it (actually, this can disqualify you from any of the inner dorms).</p>
<p>How about dorms for musicians?</p>
<p>There isn’t a specific dorm for musician, but Linde probably is the place to go. Especially if you’re into guitar, drums, or singing, then Linde fits best.</p>