<p>Hi! I am going to be a Batesie next year, and I have some kind of dorky questions about different aspects of life next year. I visited Bates once, but it was a quick trip, and I wasn’t considering the trip from the viewpoint of going there. Any current Bates students, or anyone with any knowledge, please help out! Thanks!</p>
<p>1.Is it a very new england-y atmosphere (i’m from the west coast)
2. What do most kids wear? I know it is a casual campus, but I was just wondering what is the norm3. For frosh dorms, is there a communal bathroom, is it coed, and is it clean or nice?
4. When will we find out about roommates, and do roommates usually contact each other before?
5. Are the dorms nice, or at least comfortable?
6. I’ve heard that there is a party scene - is this on campus, or off?</p>
<p>Thanks so much!
And I know that the dailyjolt has some really good information too.</p>
<p>I'll also be a freshman....and I'm also wondering about the bathrooms in dorms.</p>
<p>ok, let's see. I will try to answer the question the best I can.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Bates has a ton of kids from New England, so I guess it does have a bit of a New England atmosphere. But if your from the west coast, especially if your from California, it shouldn't be too different, besides the weather ;). If you have specific worries about the New England atmosphere, just say so and I can try to answer this question in a better way.</p></li>
<li><p>Bates is definetely a pretty casual campus compared to many other places that I have heard about, but there is still a wide range of clothing that people choose to wear. Most people just wear jeans and t-shirts a lot of the time. Some of the more liberal, hippish, outing club kids will wear flannel and tweed. A lot of girls wear long flowing skirts when its warmer outside. A lot of the jocks and some others wear sweat pants. On the preppier side, there are girls that wear little jean skirts and polo shirts, while some guys will wear plaid shorts and pink pants, which shocked me a little bit when I first got here. We don't have a huge number of popped collars, which is a bit suprising considering how expensive Bates is. People shop anywhere in a range of stores from Salvation Army to Ralph Lauren so I wouldn't go out and buy a whole new wardrobe to fit in unless you wore uniforms to high school like me :).</p></li>
<li><p>In general, the bathroom situation depends on where you are living. In houses, the bathrooms are coed but you usually can lock the doors behind you so you are the only one in the bathroom at any given time. Hedge and Smith are generally coed by floor, so there is one bathroom per floor that should only be used by the people on it, which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't. I think the other dorms have two bathrooms on each floor so there is usually one for each sex, but I am not positive about that.</p></li>
<li><p>I think I found out my housing and roommate right at the beginning of August last year, but they seem to be doing stuff a bit different so I don't know if it will be the same for you guys. You defintely should contact your roommate(s) before hand so you don't end up with duplicate items (like two TVs, fridges).</p></li>
<li><p>Bah, the dorms are okay. They are not the nicest part of Bates, but they are livable and become your home. If your lucky enough to get a big room great, if your not, well you make the best of it and take advantage of your friends who have big rooms.</p></li>
<li><p>The party scene location depends on how many seniors live in off campus housing each year. I think less seniors are living off campus this year (?) so maybe there will be more parties on campus. We will have to see in the fall.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I live in CA too... where do you live? I feel like there should be more ways to interact with people going to Bates before we actually get there...</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we are all in the same boat. We could interact more if we could get our facebooks. Maybe I'm an idiot....but how exactly does a coed bathroom work?</p>
<p>I agree, although most of the people I know who have facebook now are getting all freaked out about their future classmates for some reason or another. </p>
<p>Rachie, thank you so much for your answers, they were very helpful and gave me a really good idea of some of the aspects of living at Bates. So thank you! Do you have any suggestions, advice, things to look out for for living at Bates next year? Any suggestions would be definately appreciated from a current student like you. Thanks!</p>