Hi guys! I was recently accepted into UNC’s class of 2021 and am beginning to look into housing options. I’m sort of torn between living on northern campus (close to classes, and I just really love that area) and southern campus (where the dorms are suite-style). The best place to live obviously depends a lot on personal preferences, but I was wondering if anyone has any advice on corridor style vs. suite style and northern campus vs. southern campus?
Regarding corridor style vs. suite style housing, what we were told last summer at the first-year orientation by someone from the residence hall office is that no university cleaning service will be provided unless the restroom can be accessed by the cleaning staff without going through student rooms. To put it another way, not all suites are created equal in regards to cleaning services: if you are in a suite of rooms off a corridor that connects the common restroom with the outside door (such as at Hinton James a/k/a “HoJo”, Craige, or Ehringhaus), then bathroom cleaning services will be provided by the university; otherwise, the students will have to clean up their own bathrooms (because the university doesn’t want to have cleaning staff going through students’ rooms in order to get to the restrooms). I don’t know about the North Campus residence halls, but this was why my first-year student chose to live in a place such as HoJo/Craige/Ehringhaus rather than some of the other residence halls on South Campus.
In terms of distance, while the South Campus residence halls are farther away from most of the academic buildings (although closer to the Dean Dome, if that is important to you), there is the P2P bus service which if pretty good about getting you to the other parts of campus and Franklin Street. It is also my sense that the South Campus residences halls have a good bit of esprit de corps; and if you live on South Campus you will eat most of your meals with other first-year students, whereas if you live on North Campus, there will be many more upperclass students where you eat (although that may or may not be important to you).
FWIW, here is an excerpt from a thread last year that addressed the question “Granville Towers vs. South Campus”:
“I lived on South my first year and the walk is not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I have heard numerous freshmen that lived at Granville complain about a feeling of social isolation. It’s also not that much nicer than a well-maintained, newer dorm like Koury/Hardin/Horton, to be totally honest. If it was me, making the decision with the info I know now, I would never ever pick Granville as a freshman. Especially because there is a LOT of construction going on right now, that I am not sure would be done by the time you come in the fall. Definitely go with South Campus; it’s kind of a freshman rite of passage, lol. You want Koury or Hardin or Horton or the other one (you’ll know what I mean looking at a map; there are four identically shaped buildings all together on South). Hinton James (aka HoJo) is a high-rise dorm and a nightmare when the elevators go out (not that that is often or anything) and just generally has a bad rep, as it is also the farthest from everything.”
I presume that you will attend an Admitted Students Day plus a first-year orientation session in the summer; there are opportunities on those occasions to tour a “model” room at a South Campus residence hall, so you and your parents can see what it looks like.
@gandalf78 Thank you so much for the advice!