<p>I'll be a freshman at MIT next year, and I'm really hoping I can live in McCormick. I really like that it's an all-female dorm. Does anyone know what my chances of getting into McCormick would be if I list it as my first choice for the housing lottery? I'm hoping that since it's an RBA dorm and you can't participate in REX, the amount of people listing it in their top choices will be lower. Thanks! </p>
<p>I have absolutely no experience with McCormick in the housing lottery. Hopefully your chances are good, but the dorms’ relative popularities vary from year to year and there isn’t really a way to know. Try not to worry about it. Even if you somehow do not get into McCormick this semester you can get in next semester, or the semester after that. Everything will work out.</p>
<p>I was under the impression that you can’t switch into RBA dorms mid-way through the year at all as freshmen but I may be wrong. If you really want to live in McCormick the housing algorithm is not strategy-proof so you may want to look into that. As lidusha notes the relative popularity of dorms does fluctuate but it usually but not always does not fluctuate that much year-to-year. </p>
<p>I also know very little about McCormick, but I believe that if there’s a good reason for which you need to be in an all-female room, you would almost certainly be able to live there. If that is the case, I would contact the lottery to let them know.</p>
<p>If it’s simply a preference, I’m aware that women can move into McCormick after their freshman year, but I do not know if mid-year moves are a possibility.
If you do end up in another dorm, you might want to know that in some dorms allow for a bit more sex-segregation, as that seems to be what you’re looking for. Many suites in Burton-Conner, by accident or design, are single sex, meaning that both the bathroom and kitchen/lounge area would be all-female. Simmons’ private bathrooms are also, of course, sex-segregated.</p>
<p>Random Hall has two all-female floors, one more isolated than the other and closer to all-female socially as well as who lives there and the other all-female but with many males in the social circle(s).</p>
<p>As Lydia alluded to, there are different ways in which living groups are all-female. Could you describe what you’re looking for in an all-female living situation?</p>
<p>Another option you may want to look into is WILG (Women’s Independent Living Group). An independent living group at MIT is similar to a fraternity and sorority in that it gets resources from MIT, but operates more independently than a dorm. WILG is one that is all-female. (You technically can’t live there as a freshman, but you can certainly become part of the group with the intent to live there future years. I don’t know what it’s like with WILG, but fraternities/sororities/independent living groups in general will give freshmen space to sleep and study even while they officially live in a dorm.)</p>