<p>SO my daughter just got her number.. i think she is in the last 20 people in her class.. </p>
<p>SHe is now in a single in west, she has had a tough time making friends because she is very shy and her RA has been no help. I know there are some alums out there.. i would love some advice.</p>
<p>i dont know what to tell her to do. What is the scoop with the interest housing, especially sub. free housing.</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>Sub. free isn’t really usually enforced… Doesn’t she have a friend whom she’d like to room with who might have a higher number?</p>
<p>unfortunately i dont think so… she has made a lot of acquaintances but not friends. She is not a drinker at all ( her choice not our dictate - in fact we have encouraged her to do some responsible socializing… as oppose to no socializing) and having a single has isolated her… she tries … but her shyness gets in her way. She was so bummed about getting a single this past summer… </p>
<p>and now she is afraid her number is just going to put her in some triple with kids she doesnt know. </p>
<p>as a parent it is very frustrating…</p>
<p>would sub free be better, even if it isnt enforced as well as traditional housing?</p>
<p>When I was a sophomore I lived in sub-free housing. At the time I believe that if you asked for sub-free, it was guaranteed, though I don’t know if that’s still the case. Our group of 3 had terrible lottery numbers and we still got a suite in the Cutten complex (versus a triple in Drake if we didn’t ask for sub-free), though they didn’t have any 3 person suites left so we had a random 4th person. She might be able to meet more like-minded people living in sub-free housing as well.</p>
<p>lydia08, how did that random person work out? Thats what i think will happen to my daughter… that she will be a random person in a group.</p>
<p>i assume that singles are impossible to get… given my daughter’s number, i expect her to be living in a hut on rte 12B.</p>
<p>sigh.</p>
<p>My daughter was in a single her first semester. She met friends through some of the clubs and roomed with one of them second semester.</p>
<p>However, as a parent there really isn’t much you can do <em>hugs</em></p>
<p>thank you susgeek.</p>
<p>i know… i have spent years resisting the temptation to be a helicopter parent… and have been successful, so i will continue… but it is tough at times.</p>
<p>It is sooooo hard, picklemom. </p>
<p>The D who went to Colgate is now working on her second bachelors and applying to grad school, and I have two other ones in college and one doing college apps now.</p>
<p>It gets a little easier, but not a lot when you see them hurting <em>hugs</em></p>
<p>Well I came in as a sophomore transfer. I was actually happy to be in Cutten. Most people love Cutten because it’s down the hill, where most of student life really is and it’s literally next door to the gym! It’s also warmer down the hill in the winter because one isn’t constantly battling with the wind. :)</p>
<p>I was that “random” roommate. My roommate and I could NOT be any more different. I had a lot of issues with her boyfriend staying over 3-4x a week and my roommate refused to abide by our rules. Luckily I found a friend with an open double. Even if she was just an acquaintance, I would’ve moved in! It’s okay to have acquaintances! The most important thing is that her lifestyle is compatible with her roommates. In my first year at an another college, I had a roommate who was a night owl and I was the early bird. My RA had other roommate requests and realized that there was another pair who had a night owl/early bird issue and she just swapped us around. I knew the new roommate from clubs and we weren’t exactly best of friends but she was certainly MUCH better than my first roommate!</p>
<p>Who knows, I probably was that random roommate simply because I asked for sub-free. 
It IS usually quieter than other dorms.</p>
<p>thank you ticklemepink and susgeek</p>
<p>i am just going to stay positive, try to convince her to go sub-free if she doesnt have anyone to room with…</p>
<p>on the positive side, she was just recommended by one of her profs to apply to be a writing consultant for the writing center :)</p>
<p>Well, the random person put in our suite was someone who had left partway through her first year and was definitely NOT substance free (in that she invited her friends over to drink wine in our room…) and she was a massive slob. She actually ended up leaving Colgate after that year. If we’d had someone who actually wanted to be in substance free and who was a relatively courteous roommate, it would have been a lot better situation.</p>
<p>I do think that if she requests substance-free, she’s a lot more likely to end up with like-minded roommates than if she doesn’t…</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted ED. As far as I know, she has not received any information about housing or a lottery number. Is she missing something?</p>
<p>Looks like I jumped the gun. Freshmen are notified in April about housing options. Whew!</p>
<p>@picklemom: ResLife has office hours daily and would be a great resource to help out your daughter in determining options for next year. For many first-years, the second semester is much more solidifying in terms of friendships and community-building, so without being a “helicopter parent” encourage her to break outside of her shell–as hard as that may be! Becoming a little more familiar with one of those acquaintances may end result in a lifetime friend, or at the very least, a solid roommate. </p>
<p>@Loophole: First off, congratulations on your daughter’s acceptance! As an accepted first-year, your daughter will receive a questionnaire in the mail with basic questions on what type of living community she would like to live in, and basic lifestyle questions. From there, ResLife does a great job at making pairings, both with roommates and the various residence halls at Colgate.</p>
<p>My son went on roommate.com and was matched up with someone who is very compatible. They got to know each other on FB and decided they would ask for each other and they are perfect roommates. </p>
<p>They really like each other and are good friends and each has their own circle of friends and they all get along. They are rooming again next year.</p>
<p>Another kid from our HS took his chances and wound up with a totally opposite personality type and they don’t click at all. He was very bummed out but learned to live with it.</p>
<p>Not sure how that would work for sophmores but I think it’s worth a try! Good luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>@eagle2395 - i did encourage my D to go to Res life, but she is so embarrassed. I tried to emphasis that she is not the only one who is in this situation. I am going to work on her during spring break and really encourage her to go in after she gets back.</p>
<p>@pengo I know they have something like that at colgate… i am trying to get her to try it.</p>
<p>being a parent is fun fun fun! :)</p>
<p>I remember crying when I got my lottery number freshman year! I had a difficult first semester too, and I wasn’t sure who I would live with. As the second semester progressed, I found two other people from a club I was part of to live with the next year. However, I wound up in a townhouse with friends as the opportunity arose later in the semester as I made new friends. </p>
<p>So it really isn’t too late for your daughter to solidfy and create new friendships this semester–and I would suggest she go to reslife. They are not judgmental, and perhaps they will introduce her to someone else in a similar situation. Otherwise, I would recommend sub-free housing. I knew quite a few sub-free kids throughout the years, and despite what other people say, they were just as social, outgoing, and fun as those who were not sub-free.</p>
<p>My daughter ended up in a single in West Hall in her freshman year, also, even though she didn’t request one. She was worried she wouldn’t meet any friends, and when we dropped her off we were a little worried, too! But, even though she is fairly quiet and a little shy, she made friends. </p>
<p>You make friends, I think, less from your housing situation where everyone is just thrown together than from the classes and activities you get involved in. My daughter joined the women’s rugby club team and loves it! She’s about 5’0" and 90 lbs, so go figure. That’s where she made most of her friends. </p>
<p>A lot of the freshman on her dorm floor were nice enough, but some were irritating and not pleasant to be around, so she realized after awhile that she had to break out of that cocoon. And that’s what this is really about. You go to college not to have “friends” handed to you as roommates, but to meet all sorts of different types of people, some of them genuinely tiresome and difficult to deal with I’m afraid. It’s easy to say this as an adult, but it’s all part of growing up and learning to live with people. </p>
<p>You have to go through some difficulties to become a fully human person, and perhaps coping with some roommate issues and a little loneliness is one way to do that. If that’s the only problem your child has at Colgate, count them very lucky, indeed. I just would bite your lip and let them cope as best they can. Freshman year will go by so fast, you’ll wonder what happened.</p>
<p>My daughter got into a four person suite in Drake Hall with a few friends somehow through the lottery for her soph year, but some of those roommates are hardly ever around (boyfriends!). I really don’t think which room or building she ended up in matters a whole lot, and part of me thinks they should reshuffle all roommates every two months just for the experience of meeting new people. Well, not really, but that’s part of the whole idea of going to college. </p>
<p>Encourage your child to get into clubs and sports and other activities and they will make friends and be fine. Do not keep calling them or intervening unless you want a dependent child. It’s hard, I know. </p>
<p>My parents dropped me off at Colgate in the era before cell phones and I phoned home about once a month when I remembered, too. I had roommate issues, but solved them myself. I survived with no scars. They will, too.</p>
<p>thanks for all the thoughts.</p>
<p>my daughter has applied for the wellness dorm so she should know this week.</p>
<p>she went to res life and although the person was nice, he wasnt very helpful.</p>
<p>my daughter has joined groups and some are more active then others. </p>
<p>i think a sports team is a great way to meet people but that is not my daughter.</p>
<p>@cadriethiel thanks for sharing your experience. my daughter’s class is the second biggest in colgate’s history and her lottery number is in the 800’s so she is hoping the interst housing dorm works out.</p>
<p>@colgatedad. I am glad your daughter has had a good experience … that is wonderful. Just to clarify… we are not helicopter parents. I try to use this forum as a sounding board to think of different ways to advise her. We have not intervened… we do feel that she needs to work this out on her own… but i dont think of it as a bad thing to encourage and support your child.</p>
<p>When i was dropped off at college… there was only one phone down the hall in my dorm… but it was a different time back then :)</p>
<p>We find colgate to be intellectually stimulating for her, we would just like her to enjoy herself socially also…as that is a big part of college. Unfortunately she is not a drinker or partier so has also hampered her ability to find herself socially as there is not a ton to do that doesnt involve drinking and partying.</p>
<p>after reading this back, this seems kinda snippy …i dont mean it too… i am just trying to explain my daughter’s situation. :)</p>
<p>thank you all for your words and help! :)</p>
<p>No offense taken. Every parent wants the best for their child, and we all (me included) worry like crazy that they’re not making friends, getting involved, taking advantage of what the university has to offere, and so on. It’s completely normal. I remember my own parents’ method of dealing with me in college which was to drop me off, ignore me completely and let me do whatever I wanted, and then show up four years later at graduation. I’m a little more involved than that – but perhaps not much. </p>
<p>As a residential university which prides itself on clubs, sports, drama, and other activities, any student who is not somewhat of a joiner is going to be a bit isolated. My daughter played soccer throughout school, but was not in any sense a top athlete. In fact, after her sophomore year in high school, she dropped soccer to focus on academics. Yet, she was encouraged to join the women’s soccer club team as a freshman – which she did. </p>
<p>They do not cut players, the sport is really much safer than its ‘blood and cuts’ reputation, and she had a ball. She is very small, yet she loves rugby and gets to travel with the team and was able to meet and hang out with older girls. It helped her survive what might have been a long and lonely freshman year. She is from Southern California, and the great differences between that and Colgate might have made it tough to adjust, but rugby got her through it all with a lot of new friends. </p>
<p>Whether your daughter is similarly inclined, it’s really essential that any student at Colgate find some niche they can get involved in or it’s going to be a long four years. The newspaper is excellent, drama is very good, there are political clubs, the fitness center, various club sports and many other clubs of all kinds. I do realize that some people are just not psychologically joiners, but I also believe that everything enjoys friendships and doing interesting things with others, which I imagine would make the greatest difference of all in how much you get out of Colgate. To “just” be a student who goes to classes and studies hard is fine, but you lose a great deal of what you are going to Colgate to experience.</p>