Life suddenly gets better when the college worry is gone. BTW, there’s a thread somewhere about what to bring.
Also btw, a subject that often comes up is research opportunities. Happy to say one of the projects my kid, who graduated in 2014, worked on is now published in a highly ranked environmental journal. She’s listed as an author. Another one from UR is in the pipeline.
Hey Lergnom, it would be great if you could link us to that thread! I want to be aware of what is recommended to bring ahead of time so that I may be prepared 
There is more than one but you can find them all - the best is probably started by WOWM, source of incredible knowledge - by going to the magnifying glass that’s now at bottom right of the 1st page for UR and typing in “what to bring”. I think the main thread is called “annual what to bring thread”.
I was surprised to see my son’s room given the comments on CC. He is in a single on the quad due to a medical request. Everything I had read here talked about Rochester having large rooms, but my son can barely move in his. He is a solid, 6 footer and his legs barely fit under the desk. When he stands up and pushes the chair out he gets hemmed in because the chair smacks into the bed (the bed is raised and this still happens). He cannot get his monitor or CPU under the hutch attachment on the small desk. The worst thing is that his window only opens 3 inches because he is on the first floor. So in case of fire he can only use the door. The lounge on the floor is ridiculous. It just has bench seating around the edge. It is not useable study space. It looks like bus terminal seating in a designed to be indestructible and uncomfortable sense. It is all just horrible and comes with a huge price tag. I am frankly sick over it.
So sorry Gingerland. Which dorm is he in? The singles are literally half of a double room. My son son was also on the first floor in Tiernan and I think he probably disabled whatever keeps the windows from opening. The lounge was small as I recall but the students end up hanging in each other’s room more than in the lounge. My son is 6’3" btw. I don’t think any of the singles are bigger in other dorms but you can call housing and complain and see if they can help.
Freshman move in is today… I’m assuming you moved in early? (Sports? International?) Has he talked with his RA about it all? They ought to know if there are better options he could switch to.
The only single room I’ve ever seen was in Susan B and it was small. I suspect the Quad ones might be larger, so if he’s already in the Quad that might be it. They ended up with more yield than expected again this year (more freshman than expected - though not as bad as a couple of years ago at least), so I can’t imagine any double rooms are available as a single.
Quad singles are almost exactly half the square footage of doubles, so everyone else is in the same boat as he is. Except for the people who are in triples…who must get to know their roommates VERY well. I’m pretty sure I know which dorm you’re talking about, and D survived just fine last year in a first-floor double there. In fact, she’ll miss the Quad this fall.
Have him try moving the bed against the far wall, under the window, and put the dresser under the bed. The room should seem bigger that way.
Yes, I believe singles everywhere are on the small side. I have a friend whose son went to Univ of Florida and posted a photo of her son and his room mate each sitting on their beds. The room literally was only wide enough for the two beds to have a refrigerator between them, under the one window.
So the photo showed bed-refrigerator-bed. Judging by that for a double the room must have only been about 10 or 11 feet wide for 2 boys. Their desks were along the walls in front of their beds and I imagine their dressers were in the closets unseen in the photo.
I think the singles lose floor space because cinderblock was used to cut doubles in half. And cinderblock plus whatever space you lose to the running of electric, etc is going to cost you precious inches. Will he survive? Probably. I just didn’t want people thinking all dorms at Rochester were beautiful and spacious. Or had windows you were allowed to use. I was shocked given the glowing reports I had heard here. I have lived in Army billets, so it should have been hard to shock me.
Which dorm is he in? I’ll totally admit yours is the first complaint I’ve ever heard, so I’m really curious as to which dorm… My guy had a single in Sue B his sophomore year (he was a D’Lion there), and while it was small, it certainly wasn’t bad. He was content anyway.
I tried to find some photos of the single dorms but couldn’t. They used to have some on FB. What I think people do with smaller rooms is to get the bed up and put the dresser under it to save space. The window thing is a safety issue. They don’t want people on the first floor to be broken into.
My son did a study abroad in New Zealand and was on the first floor and someone in his suite left their window open and while every one else had locked their rooms, that person had things stolen. This was in New Zealand! It will be cold soon enough and your son will not feel so inclined to open the window.
I’m sorry the single was a disappointment. The first floor double in Tiernan my son was in was huge so there are differences room to room.
It is very hard to find pictures of the quad singles at Rochester, but I finally did. This is a single in Lovejoy and seems fairly typical. Small, yes. But doable for most, I would think.
http://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V71N2/images/feature2d.jpg
I will agree that, for the most part, the dorms at Rochester are not the luxurious lodgings that I’ve seen at some other schools. D’s double in a Towers suite this year is smaller than her double on the quad was freshman year. But with some imaginative furniture placement and a little decoration, it’s working nicely for her and looks quite homey.
The good news is that freshman housing at Rochester encourages kids to get out of their rooms to study and socialize. D found her favorite place to study was a certain room in the library and much of her socializing first semester freshman year took place in the hall lounge. I found that preferable to the situation that can occur when students new to a school spend most of their time alone in their lovely but isolated suite singles.
Good find @EllieMom. That is similar to the photo I remember. I agree about the study areas. My son used to study in Rettner hall since it was so new and had big windows and light.
