Are fancy dorms evil?

<p>I don't know that it was fancy, but it probably enjoyed some great late night conversation.</p>

<p>lspf72: Whitman is breathtaking. It truly is very, very beautiful.</p>

<p>I wonder what his/her SAT scores were to get into Harvard?</p>

<p>D's mice from the hookah bar were probably very sophisticated, all in Carrie Bradshaw outfits.</p>

<p>Oops. Getting too off topic.</p>

<p>as a first semester freshman, i'm one of the lucky ones in the new dorms (midmo, if you're reading this: i go to mizzou). here's my $0.02 on old dorms vs new dorms at a big state school:</p>

<p>New dorms are great because they're bigger, cleaner (in respects to walls, floors, general maintenance, lobby, etc), have a bathroom per every 2 rooms, and are pretty nicely located.</p>

<p>Old dorms are great because they're more fun, have a better sense of community, and a really fun history (for example, my mom lived in the exact same dorm room in 1978 as one of my friends does now). </p>

<p>what's better? depends on the kid. i really wanted clean and loved the bathroom situation, so i picked new. my best friend wanted community style everything, so she picked old. we still hang out. there's no huge divide. the important thing is that we live on campus and are therefore able to be way more involved with campus stuff than our commuter counterparts.</p>

<p>i wouldn't worry so much about the style of the dorm as much as i would worry about choosing a good fit school and a potential major. after all, if your son or daughter is somewhere that he or she really wants to be, the actual location of their bed and clothes will make very little difference.</p>

<p>I'm fairly certain that the mouse was recruited. And a legacy.</p>

<p>
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as a first semester freshman, i'm one of the lucky ones in the new dorms (midmo, if you're reading this: i go to mizzou

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</p>

<p>kristin, The new dorms are very attractive (from the outside, I haven't been inside). Certainly a large improvement over what the new dorms looked like in the late 60's, when Schurz and Gillette were built. Soviet architecture, anyone?</p>

<p>

Of course they still do exist! Why wouldn't they? Oxford does not knock down it's old buildings (that might be illegal anyway, since most of them are protected with some kind of heritage status). Some are 800 years old (but modern on the inside). There are 100s of different types of rooms with different rent structures depending on the college. It's not a big deal. (Christchurch college has a policy of making the rent the same for all their rooms, big or small. This is amusingly called "anti-ghettoisation". But most other colleges have vairable rent rates) It's quite common to get a "set" with your own bedroom and sitting room, sometimes bathroom. There are no servants as such but an army of staff run the college accommodation. There are "Scouts" who do the cleaning and I think they were historically the servants. </p>

<p>Everyone has single rooms in England. Students would FREAK if they had to share. They would move out. They think Americans are insane for putting up with sharing and don't actually believe it can possibly be the norm in the US.</p>

<p>
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Everyone has single rooms in England. Students would FREAK if they had to share. They would move out. They think Americans are insane for putting up with sharing and don't actually believe it can possibly be the norm in the US.

[/quote]
I think this is quite funny since my recollection from all the British boarding school books I read was that the dorms for high school kids had at least four or five beds per room.</p>

<p>My daughter is in one of the cheapest dorms on campus, and it's not because of the cost. She said, "Mom, all the other dorms were boring." Every surface of every public area is painted - murals, cartoons, you name it. One of the bathrooms is painted glow-in-the-dark. I found it sort of claustrophobic, but she loves it. They are pretty scrupulous about keeping the kitchen clean; so far no cockroaches. No rodents because there are 3 cats living on her floor. That's better than we do in our comfy suburban house, where the cat occasionally brings in a live rat to share with us, always at 4 am.</p>

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<p>D's room has mice that are direct descendants of the mice that infested John Kennedy's room.</p>

<p>Well, of course Harvard has a very high caliber of mouse. I would expect no less.</p>

<p>D is now tearing out her hair trying to choose a dorm at King's College, London for next semester. She complained that they were all different prices and offered different meal plans. What's a poor (as in unfortunate, not economic, though that too with the dollar so devaluated, haha) American to do?</p>

<p>She said, "Why didn't I choose one of those programs that take care of everything for you -- choose your roommate, choose your dorm, place you with other study abroad students." I answered, "Not your style, babe. You'd be bored." She, "But they read you bedtime stories and bring you cocoa. I want bedtime stories." She is obsessing about this dorm selection.</p>

<p>mythmom - I have a friend at Kings College at the moment. She is living in a residence hall very near to the campus, and says it is the best decision she made, because it is dreadful to have to travel from some of the futher out places. She is not in a Kings College residence hall, but one they share with all the different colleges from the University of London consortium, so she had met many people. She says though that the food is very bad, and there is mostly no choice, there is just one meal and if you don't like it then it is too bad.</p>

<p>tli83: How nice of you to write. Do you know the name of this residence hall or could you ask your friend?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>
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I think this is quite funny since my recollection from all the British boarding school books I read was that the dorms for high school kids had at least four or five beds per room.

[/QUOTE]

Yes, but contrary to popular American stereotype (Americans are soooo obsessed with stereotypes like no other nation! Harry Potter is NOT real life in the UK.) <1% of people in the UK attended a boarding school. This is probably because it costs about £20,000 a year, which is probably more than the national average yearly wage. Most people do not have Prince William's endless funds.</p>

<p>About Kings College, the main college buildings are on The Strand, which is right in the centre of London. It will no doubt be more expensive to live within walking distance but if you live futher away, you need to factor in the cost of daily public transport, which could be considerable. Usually any potential accommodation will tell you which transport "zone" it's in. The Strand is in zone 1, so if the accommodation is in zone 4, for example, you will need to factor in the cost of a zone 1-4 transport ticket. </p>

<p>This is the London transport web-site, which might help.
<a href="http://www.tfl.gov.uk/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.tfl.gov.uk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>LOL, I realize that nor presumably were all those girls in the Enid Blyton books. :) Still it always struck me that British boarding schools were even more spartan than American ones. So it surprises me to hear the reverse is true for college education.</p>

<p>Thank you so much cupcake.</p>

<p>"Americans are soooo obsessed with stereotypes like no other nation!"</p>

<p>May or may not be true, and absolutely no grudge against the presumably-British (?) author, but I do enjoy the irony of this statement ;)</p>

<p>hahahaha if you're pointing out that he/she is making a stereotype about how negative stereotyping is, you beat me to it!</p>