<p>Which dorm would you suggest for a freshman female? Coed is fine. TIA for your opinions!</p>
<p>Do you mind a required meal plan?</p>
<p>Mandatory meal plan is fine. </p>
<p>BTW - can you tell me what it means when they say that if your child gets into a sorority or fraternity that they can go to a reduced meal plan for these mandatory meal plan dorms?</p>
<p>Sororities serve meals at their houses. It is a way for the girls to be together, bond, etc. Not all of them can live at the house. Most houses have room for 40-60 girls. But there are generally 120-140 pre-rush and with rush they add about 60. Some sororities serve 3 meals a day weekdays and 2 on weekends. Some serve only lunch and dinner weekdays and none on weekends. But it gets the girls together for meals whether they live in the house or not. If you have a mandatory meal plan, and you join a sorority, the sororities that serve the most meals usually have something worked out with seminole dining so that members get to pick a meal plan with even less meals than offered the general freshman population, or the sorority discounts their plan. For the ones who only serve 10 meals a week anyway, the lowest plan that seminole dining offers works out well so no discount is needed. </p>
<p>The old historic dorms on the east side were gutted and redone a few years back. They have a central location. So Landis, Gilchrist, Broward, Cawthone, J. Murphee, Bryan and Reynolds are popular. J Murphee is all girl, Reynolds is the wellness dorm so you sign that you won’t drink ON OR OFF CAMPUS. But they do require a meal plan. </p>
<p>Degraff is pretty new but not central. Wildwood is pretty new and not quite as central but not bad and no meal plan required. These two and Landis have the only wireless connectivity but FSU is upgrading and I believe the entire campus will be wireless by fall. Faculty can use the new wireless network and they are slowly rolling out connectivity. </p>
<p>The rest are older. They are ALL air conditioned. Some have newer bathrooms or newer flooring. </p>
<p>You can rank dorms, and GO BACK AND RE-RANK until about March or April. They have accepted student days and the dorms are open for tours in Feb and March and April. </p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>my son is in Broward. It is a renovated east side dorm. Good location, nice room. However, he has met very few of the other people that live there–even on his own floor. His roommate is an upperclassman and things haven’t worked out well. It just doesn’t foster meeting people. He has to have a meal plan and he doesn’t care for the food in the dining hall. I think if he had it to do over, he might have picked a dorm that didn’t require a meal plan and where there were more freshman.</p>
<p>sunnyflorida - yes, that does help a ton! What about that tunnel to get to Degraff? Sounds scarey to me, but I guess you have to hope that the girls would be smart enough not to be walking alone at night.</p>
<p>I looked to see how long you had to revise your housing preference, but no info online.</p>
<p>wtztu - how do you find out how many freshman are in a particular dorm?</p>
<p>My son had a very good priority number. He got his second choice of dorm. However, because his number was so low he was put in a dorm that upperclassmen who wanted to stay on campus would have priority over him–hence his sophomore roommate. I think there are others in the dorm with a similar situation–freshman with an upperclassman. I just think a lot of freshman get into Wildwood or Degraff or one of the dorms with community bathrooms because you don’t need as high priority number to get into them.
He has a friend in Deviney who knows everyone on his floor (they have hall bathrooms).
As for Degraff–at orientation, the police said despite all their efforts to make the tunnel safe,they tell the students NOT to use the tunnel at night.</p>
<p>wtztu - thanks!</p>
<p>It really depends on what you want out of your freshman dorm experience. If you want a nicer, bigger dorm with little interaction with your floor (from what I have heard)…go with a suite style dorm. If you want to make a lot of friends your freshman year, go with a community style dorm. It really depends on the people in your hall, but I would find it hard NOT to make friends if you tried. Yes, the rooms are smaller than the suite style dorms and you have to share a bathroom with half of the side of your floor, but it has worked out perfectly for me. My whole floor is friends with each other and other floors as well and we all hang out together. And in regards to the bathrooms, they are cleaned every day and I have never had to wait for the bathroom or shower. In suite style dorms, you have to clean the bathroom yourself and I have heard some not so pleasant stories about how gross they can get if you have lazy roommates!</p>
<p>I am currently a freshman in Deviney and if I had to pick all over again, I would definitely pick Deviney again because I’ve been having a great time. If you value getting to know people over having a nice(er) room, go with the community style dorm. If not, go with a suite style dorm. </p>
<p>That being said, if you are looking into a community style dorm I would definitely pick either Deviney or Dorman (both have a great location right next to Landis and are ‘nicer’ than Kellum and Smith).</p>
<p>If you have any questions let me know!</p>
<p>You’re safe with pretty much anything besides Kellum or Smith. Salley too is kinda meh.
But I absolutely hate going to DeGraff. The “rape” tunnel isn’t so scary, but there’s always a bunch of potheads smoking right in front or to the side of the entrance, and it smells like crap. It was like that over the summer when I visited people and it’s still like that… so apparently no one does anything about it.</p>
<p>Deviney rocks! Our RA even makes hot chocolate for us when it is cold outside…which is like right now, it’s 27 degrees this morning!</p>
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<p>Dnerd - is Degraff considered the freshman party dorm?</p>
<p>Also, you have no idea how scary it is for the mother of a young woman to hear you kids even jokingly call it the “rape” tunnel. If the students don’t use the tunnel at night, what is the alternative? To walk across a major highway at night in the dark?</p>
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<p>Thanks, Tallalassie! It sounds like those of you in the traditional style dorms get to know each other better. It is a shame that when they renovate the dorms they don’t renovate them but leave at least some of them in the traditional style.</p>
<p>There is a downside to community bathrooms. Trust me. And most colleges, as they renovate or build new dorms, do away with community baths. The latest is not only suite-style but apartment style.</p>
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<p>Thanks, 2010VE! The community style dorms sound like a lot of fun. Is Deviney mostly all freshman?</p>
<p>they have preview dates for accepted students where you can visit all the dorms…probably a good thing to do. Also, Bryan Hall is all freshman–it’s one of the Learning Communities so if you were interested in doing that you’d have the nice renovated dorm full of freshman. Since you have to take some courses right at the dorm, you’d meet people in the small classes.</p>
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<p>We will definitely do that. Do you know how long you have to revise your housing preference list? I have read on here you have through March or maybe even April. I don’t think we can make it to the preview day in Februrary, and they have 2 days in March for preview but I want to be sure we go early enough. I guess I could call housing and ask, but if anyone knows, please let me know.</p>
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<p>I haven’t talked to DD about this option. It sounds very interesting to me, but I know DD wants to rush a sorority and play intramural sports, too, and I don’t know how much of a time commitment there is for the LLC activities. I don’t want her involved in too many extra-curriculars because she does need to focus on her classes, too. She is a hard worker and gets good grades, but she does need to work at it and she does seem to need a lot of sleep, too, lol!</p>
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<p>Well not exactly, but it’s certainly the only place where people do stuff like that blatantly and out in the open.
Oh and yeah, the alternative is to cross the highway. It’s at a 4-way intersection so there is the walking signal. Unfortunately at night I did have some dumb people continue to drive as the walking signal was counting down, so you have to be careful.</p>
<p>There’s so much hate for DeGraff in this thread. I’m a sophomore and have lived here both years. Honestly, the tunnel is not that scary and I have never seen potheads hanging around in it. DeGraff has a great location with a less than five minute walk to the union and HCB (one of the main classroom buildings). As for how to get home at night–call the SAFE bus. It’s free and you’ll probably end up using it to get around after dark regardless of where you’re living.</p>