<p>can anyone explain to me the rooming situation on west campus? i'm a freshman, and i'm just wondering how to choose dorms, roommates, rushing for selective living, etc.</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>Well, in terms of being an independent...as a sophomore you can live in either a double or triple on west...no singles. </p>
<p>They'll go around and explain all this midway through the semester, but basically you fill out a form online with you're desired roommate, and you get a lottery number. With this number you're assigned a date and time when you actually go in person with a group of like, 50 or so other roommate pairs, and actually pick the individual room you want (they keep a list online and update which rooms have been taken after each round). All the floor plans and stuff are online, so what I've done the past 2 years is print them all out and highlight rooms I wanted.</p>
<p>You can also block with a group of up to 12 friends (6 roommate pairs). Basically you'll just get lottery numbers one after the other and can (or can decide not to) get rooms right near each other.</p>
<p>It's a pretty easy, yet sometimes stressful process.</p>
<p>I've lived in Crowell and Edens the past 2 year and here are my thoughts!</p>
<p>Crowell: Older, and it definitely shows. It kind of felt like a dungeon, particularly if you live in a basement room. No AC either, which kind of sucks unless you have an AC unit. The bathrooms were pretty gross too...I'm not gonna lie. BUT our room was HUGE (214), and we did decorate so it was actually pretty homey and I ended up enjoying it a lot. The location is great...right by the gym, near the BC walkway and Science Drive (if you walk behind the BC past the Dillo patio)...and not near any frats or anything so it's REALLY quiet. I lived in House H which was great...it was right near the clocktower...laundry was in my house (they aren't in every building like on east)...and there's a computer cluster in house G, which is connected on the 2nd floor so you don't even have to go outside. All in all, despite its age I enjoyed my experience.</p>
<p>Edens: If you're going to do Edens, which if you have a bad lottery number you probably don't have a choice, do 3A or 3B. They're really far away, but you already live in Edens so what's another 2 minutes to walk. BUT they're relatively new and have a much homier feel than the labyrinth other buildings. They're also laid out in clusters, so like, 6 people share a bathroom, which is FANTASTIC. Carpet, AC with a thermostat in your room, and the buildings are generally really quiet. BUT they're obviously for the most part small. I have a single which is huge, like, 136 square feet, but I have a friend who's double is like 165 (of course that's on the smaller side).</p>
<p>The problem with the other Edens buildings is you have to be careful of where you're living. You'll find there are sections with the SAE guys (I think a bunch of them are in 2C), Tridelt and PiPhi girls who tend to be on the loud side, particularily on tailgate mornings, etc etc. I chose 3B just to be safe with that...because you really never know which group of people you may be near in Edens since it's so easy with blocking.</p>
<p>Of course, Kilgo is always a GREAT building if you have a good lottery number. It will be interesting to see how things play out with Few closing and some juniors living off campus...sophomores may have more of a chance to live here than previous years.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Regarding AC, Crowell and Craven are the two quads on west without AC all others have it. </p>
<p>I live in Edens. While it's far from everything, I find it to be not as bad as people have made it out to be. My building was laid out in clusters, about 5 doubles and 3 singles per cluster. Since my block had 10 people, we basically had all the doubles and it's nice living with friends. The rooms aren't as small as people have said either. They sound very small (160-170), but aren't that bad. Of course, the rooms in other quads would be bigger, Edens is pretty good. The one thing that I don't like is the distance from everything else. Edens quad feels like a whole separate campus and going to the Main Quad takes some motivation, especially at 2am when you really crave that cheeseburger from mcdonalds. On the other hand, that's probably a good way for me to avoid putting on the lbs :)</p>
<p>I'd say overall, the nicest quads on West are Kilgo (close to everything) and Keohane (really new) but I imagine you need a pretty good lottery number for that.</p>
<p>is there drama in terms of choosing a roommate?</p>
<p>i don't think i'd want my best friend as a roomie...</p>
<p>That all depends on you and your friends.</p>
<p>Well, when my group of friends was trying to figure it out everyone was eating dinner and someone basically just said "Ok, what's everyone doing with roommates?" and it was figured out then and there. There was no drama really...everyone just considered sleeping habits, social habits, yada yada, and it wasn't really a big deal. Of course, blocking kind of eliminated problems because everyone knew that no matter who you lived with we'd alll be near each other anyway.</p>
<p>Also being an RA eliminates roommate troubles because you don't have one!</p>
<p>"They'll go around and explain all this midway through the semester, but basically you fill out a form online with you're desired roommate, and you get a lottery number."</p>
<p>What if you don't know anyone you can room with? Do they assign roommates randomly?</p>
<p>Well, in the past they've TRIED to do some "roommate matching events" but I don't know how popular they are.</p>
<p>Just ask around your dorm...chances are someone will know someone. If not I believe you can do random, but I would try my best to find someone, even if they aren't the closest of friends.</p>