My daughter will attend UMich in the fall and while she lucked out and can walk to classes, parties, football games, I was surprised to learn that the campus is divided so that some kids are placed in a different part of campus where they can’t, must rely on busses that stop running (late but apparently not late enough for some kids and not early enough for the full “tailgating” experience) and that this can affect their freshman year experience. While I knew my daughter would be fine no matter what I was surprised in doing the recent debriefing of kids who finished their freshman year, just how much they felt the "bad’ dorms affected their experience. Moreover I saw facebook posting where kids were offering money to others to trade the good area for the bad.
Is this a common phenomenon on college campuses? I am NOT talking about dorms that “bad” because they are worse in terms of size, age, amenities, etc… But rather having some dorms allow kids walking access to campus and facilities and other kids not?
I would think that at a school like UMich or any other large school where the games, parties, etc. are a huge part of the culture, they’d put all the freshmen in dorms that are closer to the action to make for a better experience. It seems like it would help with retention, too, especially in a climate where the winters are bad, and kids can’t ride their bikes to activities year round.
Come to think of it, I think BC (a smaller school, but with a big sports culture) does have housing that requires the use of public transit (notoriously unreliable here, especially in the winter).
On really large campuses it’s not uncommon for students at one end of campus to be very far from the other. Think about it-unless your dorm is in the dead center of campus, there isn’t a way to have access to EVERYTHING with ease on a huge, sprawling campus. I went to college at a large state U with bus service, and some of my classes were a quick walk away, others I needed to take the bus from my dorm. I had classmates at the opposite end of campus in other dorms who were closer to those I needed to reach by bus, but they needed the bus to get to ones close to me.
I can’t address the “tailgate experience”. I went to exactly one football game in my entire 4 years and have no idea where tailgaters partied. Surely your kid’s campus isn’t so spread out that walking to the games isn’t even possible! I remember many an early morning class before the buses were running where I walked 30 minutes in freezing New England weather to reach the buildings!
Unless a campus was built yesterday, dorms at a large campus were built over time as the campus grew, so they’re not ever going to be all in one place.
That’s something I noticed when I looked up Michigan. Wisconsin has a large but contiguous campus- I remember hustling between ends of campus one semester between two classes. There is a UW campus bus but that is more of a luxury than a need like at UM. I also know U of M (Minnesota) has a pedestrian bridge across the Mississippi river. That campus is divided by the river but obviously one can walk from one end to the other.
It is nice to have different dorm locations- a variety of buildings and atmospheres (eg at UW Lakeshore or Southeast more city highrise area).
@Sseamom. It’s a one hour and 12 minute walk (via mapquest) from the North campus dorms to the stadium. For my lucky kids its about 15 minutes.
At my other daughter’s school there is also a worse location for dorms, but ALL of the freshman are on that campus meaning EVERYONE has the same experience. Something that I personally think is better
For what it’s worth, not everyone considers proximity to a football stadium a NEED. I think 30 minutes was my longest walk, but had I needed to get to other parts of campus, I don’t think an hour would have been unusual, say from the agriculture buildings to the arts buildings. I still can’t get behind your complaint, though-campuses grow and change so it wouldn’t be unusual to have dorms spread out all over the place. My niece had a dorm on the other side of town from her urban campus. If this is an issue, a small campus would be the solution.
@Sseasmom. It’s also a one hour walk for the North Campus freshman kids to any of their classes (except dance and art kids who often end up far away on the “good” campus anyway). They must go by bus which is ok but requires much more time than a walk what with waits etc…
To be clear I was NOT complaining in any event. My kid was a the lucky one with the “good” dorm location. I was inquiring as to whether many colleges were split so that SOME kids had great locations and others had ones that were hands down much worse and which they felt negatively affected their experience compared to other kids.
George Washington University has some part of campus that is off on a hill someplace (I want to say it’s called the Mt Vernon campus?). It was very clear that it was pretty isolated, and that was a negative for us - because it looked as though your experience would be very different if you were placed in those dorms and had to commute via bus to the rest of the campus.
Years ago, Northwestern had a dorm that I think was called Courtyard that was far off campus, by the football stadium. People who were placed there did have a very negative experience and didn’t feel connected to the campus at all - understandably so, since the rest of the campus is a 10, 15 minute walk from end to end. They’ve since gotten rid of that (not sure what was done with the actual property).
@maya54 - WOW…I was gonna call “BS” on your claim of an hour+ walk to the stadium and campus, but I just did a map inquiry myself and you are 100% correct.
It is an hour walk to the Shapiro Undergraduate Library for U Mich undergrads living in North Campus housing. That library is fairly central to the main campus.
Sorry U Mich fans, but that’s pretty unacceptable to this parent. We visited U Mich several times and my kids were accepted, but the school never made it to anybody’s final list. I always loved the campus, but we never got far enough in the process to consider freshman housing. The mere possibility of being assigned to housing that far away would’ve been a deal breaker.
It’s one thing to accept a long commute to campus when you are living at home and saving the housing expense. It’s quite another thing to be treated like a commuter when you are paying handsomely for the privilege of housing…not to mention that some undergraduates will get to live much closer to the main campus, creating a hierarchy and a very different experience as others have noted. Sorry, but I think that’s a yucky situation. No idea if there’s any feasible solution, and there probably isn’t, but that would be a BIG negative for me.
Things aren’t too bad on the campus used to live on. It was advertised that anywhere on campus can be accessed within 15 minutes. It’s not true, but residence halls are at most 30 minutes to 40 minutes away from each other. The positive is that there zero public roads one must cross to get to one side to the other. You never have to “leave” campus and the main happenings were centrally located including pep rallies and such. Overall, I’d say it’s pretty easy to get around campus. No hour walks and such.
But, hey, the walk to the stadium may be bad, but at least there’s a stadium in campus!
I think students often get attached and loyal to dorms that seem isolated or “bad” at first; they sometimes have their own special culture despite–or maybe because of–their isolation or quirks. Swarthmore has a dorm that is a couple of miles from campus. A shuttle bus runs regularly to it. My nephew was placed in it as a freshman and at first was disappointed because it felt isolating and inconvenient (particularly when he injured his leg and couldn’t walk easily to it). However, he and his dormmates developed deep friendships and many eventually requested to live there in later years. I think there are certainly some unfortunate living arrangements for groups or individuals, but it seems to me that generally students are pretty resilient and make the best of their circumstances.
From my kid’s friends experience the North Campus at UM has been the most difficult/far away dorm, – it is something to be wary of and ask about when looking at colleges. The distance can be a issue. On the other hand my D was placed in the least fancy but well located freshman dorm and had no problem at all.
This was common at Indiana U, where I attended, and I believe it still is, based on what a family member who will attend IU in the fall told me (his dorm is “across campus”.) However, even those “far” dorms are really only half an hour away from the main campus area. But many of the kids who lived in those dorms did, indeed, take the bus, or bike…
I was lucky, my dorm was always in one of the complexes close to classroom buildings, within a 15 minute walk.
I personally think any walking distance over 25-30 minutes, actually, would be too far for student housing, especially for freshmen. An hour?! That’s really crazy. But I guess when you have so many students in one university, you cannot have everyone crammed together…
To be fair though, no one walks from north campus to central. Still, the bus can easily be a 20 minute ride.
They stagger class times between the two parts of campus so you have 40 minutes to transport yourself.
When I work with undergrads who don’t live on central, it’s not uncommon for me to drive them to/from work just because I’d rather they not have to commute for an hour+ just to work for a few hours.
At my undergrad, freshmen usually lived close to the stadium. Personally, I didn’t care and it was probably a 20 minute walk because I was on the opposite side of campus. Being close to my classes was way more important and you can’t get much closer than IN your dorm. Ah, the perks of a residential college.
That seems excessive. The story I was going to tell isn’t nearly that bad. Ds2 was in the “bad” dorm at his mid-size private. The rooms were smaller, and it was the freshman dorm that was in a different part of campus from all the other dorms (though not an hour away!). He loved the place. The kids who live in that dorm find it a very bonding experience. He said that given the chance to do it over he would never have had it any other way.
@citykid Just calling “no way” on the dorm at Swarthmore that is “a couple of miles” from campus. Mary Lyon is 0.7 miles away from McCabe Library, which is as central to the campus as you can get. Another 2 minutes to the farthest reaches of academic buildings. There is no dorm farther from campus than Mary Lyon. That said, Mary Lyon is “remote” compared to most of the other dorms, and it does have its own community.
There is a reason to call it North Campus and Main Campus. Otherwise, there is one campus. To fit 95% of freshmen in dorm is not easy and they have to use all resources. Since there is a very efficient bus system running on campus, I don’t see why there is a problem. After all, how many football games you are going to watch at the Michigan Stadium per year? Just hop in the bus and you will be there in 10-15 minutes. What happens more often is you will meet with someone in the campus somewhere and then walk to the stadium together. I used to live in the family housing there which is even much farther away than the North Campus dorm and I really enjoy riding on the bus EVERYDAY to main campus.
Some UMich people won’t return to their dorm for lunch or dinner, because of the bus ride. They don’t want to waste so much time waiting for the bus going and coming.
There is no reason to go back to your own dorm for lunch or dinner. The meal plan is good for any dining halls. Most students would just hang out with friends and eat together anyway disregarding the bus or not.
