I do think many, many schools will have at least some option that is single sex. I do think they do so due to sensitivity to those who, for religious or personal reasons, are looking for that option. So, call and ask. The residential life office is probably your best bet for accurate info.
A school’s dorm policies should be available by digging deeply on residential life section of website and, if that doesn’t specify, a call to res life should be able to clarify.
Among the LACs we visited, most were of the model that there are several hallway bathrooms and students vote at the beginning of the semester whether and which are co-ed or single gender. As best I recall, that includes Oberlin, Bates, Kenyon, Grinnell. The two schools I recall which did it differently were Dickinson and Denison, where tour guides talked about first year dorms having single gender hallways, with single gender bathrooms. Initially, I thought that a little old fashioned since I had co-ed halls and bathrooms 30+ years ago. But I can appreciate that, with kids adapting to so many other new experiences, having one less challenge in terms of co-ed bathrooms, is not awful. Some schools also do offer female only dorms, and a search on residential life part of schools of interest would hopefully identify that.
My dad has Alzheimer’s, but my being in a co-ed bathroom was memorable enough to him that he still tells a story about visiting me and seeing a boy walking down the hall towards us whose towel fell off. The funny part is that it never happened. The story has always been his fantasy, his fear of what I might have seen.
I think co-ed bathrooms are more often an anxiety for parents than for children. But when it is a worry for a potential student: as many have said, residential life offices will accommodate students’ living needs based on a variety of factors ranging from medical to religious to cultural. You can look on websites for schools with single sex bathrooms, but even if you go to a school with majority co-ed bathrooms, you most likely will be able to be accommodated in some way. Schools do not want students to feel uncomfortable in their dorm.
I didn’t go away to school, but this thread revived all of my worst fears. I was the kid who, at an all girls summer camp, dressed and undressed in bed under the blanket. I shared a bedroom with my sister and always changed in the bathroom with the door locked.
OTOH, my three kids who have gone away to school have lived in co-ed dorms. S17 is in a 4 bedroom suite with 5 other guys (2, not S17) have singles and they have their own bathroom and showers - I think 2 or 3 of each. D09 was an RA and spent a couple of years in co-ed dorm situations. She has 4 brothers, so it didn’t bother her. Occasionally, she had to deal with a kid who had issues with it, but mostly she was able to resolve it.
If I was going away to school, I 'd probably want a single in a single gender dorm, but that’s just me. My kids are less hung up.
Another thing about the bathrooms in the NEW freshman dorm at Rowan is that there are in fact separate facilities along the hall for men, women, and gender free use. However, they all have the same large opening into the hall. So a modest boy or girl would still have the same problem.
Sharing this just in case anyone ever hears that separate facilities are available for those who would prefer that. It’s not completely straightforward in the sense that those who would want separate facilities might also appreciate privacy.
And what if someone has a severe digestive episode? Would sound and smells travel into the hall?
This has been happening for decades, but it still doesn’t make it the right choice for everyone. I picked my brother up at college and was disgusted by the co-ed bathroom. It was filthy, graffiti everywhere, people everywhere. He is only 4 years younger than me so I wasn’t some old person many centuries removed from college, but I wouldn’t have wanted to live in that dorm. I grew up in a co-ed bathroom with 4 brothers and a sister sharing one, but we used it one at a time.
My son goes to the boys room on the next floor.
@wisteria100 I go to a LAC and lived in a dorm last year that was a converted frat house. We had a co-ed bathroom, which I would have been fine with were it not for the urinal. Which guys actually used, regardless of whether there were other people in the bathroom or whether the stalls were open. I’m fine with guys using the shower stalls or toilet stalls in the same room as me, but I was extremely uncomfortable with the urinal situation.
Most schools we looked at had the option of suite style dorms. DD ended up in the towers at OU, two kids to a room with a bathroom shared with two kids on the other side. DS will be in the dorms at UT Dallas three kids to a suite each with their own bedroom and sink in the in the hall way of the suite and toilet and shower shared with the 3 kids. DD is currently in a four bed room off campus apartment and each bedroom has it’s own full bathroom.
I’ve never understood the “whip it out for all to see” aspect of urinals. Why is it that girls, who show little or nothing of their genitalia when urinating, need privacy stalls, while guys fully expose themselves in front of each other? Weird.
These days, most urinals have dividers.
In addition to dividers, there is an etiquette around urinal usage that most, but not all, men pick up over the years. It’s like the etiquette around being naked in a locker room, which almost everyone figures out (but there’s always that guy).
Interesting (IMO) factoid: the rules about how to charge at Tesla Superchargers, where not sharing pairs of chargers is optimal, is known as “urinal etiquette.”
Not new, @carbmom . I went to a women’s college in the 80s and we had one bathroom on each floor that could be converted to coed by flipping over a sign. I grew up with three brothers, so it didn’t bother me, but a lot of other students were not that thrilled.
My son is a junior at Oberlin, and he’s also very modest and shy. Fortunately, on each floor, there is an E-system bathroom (all gender–you flip the E on the door according to your needs/wishes while you’re in there), a women only bathroom, and a men only bathroom. He opts to use the men only bathroom.
You’re going to find coed bathrooms at every school, with the exception of some religious colleges. If those don’t interest your daughter, try to find a school with a system like Oberlin’s, which will allow her a women-only bathroom. Women’s colleges will also be a good bet. My daughter went to Wellesley, and every dorm had at least one women-only bathroom, though in practice, they were pretty much all women’s bathrooms, at least during the week.
The people in your dorm aren’t strangers after the first week. In my experience they start feeling like family pretty quickly.
I think it’s pretty normal in the United States to be uncomfortable. We have a very weird culture where we go bananas about stuff like feeding babies and think nothing of half naked people on the covers of magazines or at the pool.
After reading the comments I just wanted to say, you are who you are in life. I don’t think it is necessary to make value judgments on modesty (weird, antiquated …). Some people are simply modest or shy or more introverted and there is nothing wrong with that. And there is nothing, right about being louder and less modest. I don’t think it’s a right or wrong thing. You just are who you are and try to respect people, differences and all.
I don’t see what this has to do with modesty, hang ups, old-fashioned values, or whether or not someone is introverted. I think it’s a matter of trust, and I don’t see any reason to trust someone I don’t know just because some college staff saw fit to put us in the same dorm. If people in your dorm are like family after a week, are you leaving your dorm rooms unlocked and your wallet and electronics unattended in common areas?
It isnt necessarily a “diagnosed emotional disorder” that causes discomfort with coed baths. Survivors of sexual assault and those with certain cultural and religious beliefs or modesty preferences may not adjust, despite what you expect, JHS. Nor should they be expected to.
My son is very modest, but has had no issues with his gender neutral bathroom. He showers in the evening and says no one has ever been in the other shower. (2 years.) Also, I think the kids on his floor wear robes, not just towels!
Yes, actually.At some schools that is the norm.
My kids left laptops and wallets unattended in HS. ONE time, something was taken from the locker room, and it was during an athletic event with a visiting school,. Their school had a strong honor code.