Not all dorm rooms are created equal, as well.
About a decade ago, we were overwhelmed by the Honors College dorms at the University of Alabama. Two per suite. Private bedroom for each student. Full bathroom with tub / shower & dual vanities. Full kitchen with built in seating, full size refrigerator & room for another table & chair set.
If I recall correctly, the honors dorm also had a Starbucks & small store & swimming pool outside for honors dorm resident use.
Got crossed off of our list because we confused it with our country club & only responded to one mailing for dues.
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Some of the larger schools have a mock up dorm room for tours. We found that helpful. I agree that it’s unrealistic to expect to see an actual dorm room, especially if school is in session.
Also agree that not all dining halls are created equally. That said, most schools allow anyone to buy lunch. We tried to do that everywhere we visited.
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We actually had an opportunity to tour an in-use dorm room. Aside from wondering how the occupants managed to achieve such a high degree of clutter it did nothing to either positively or negatively influence the final decision.
First of all, because they’re usually reeeeeally expensive and I, for one, would like to know what I will be paying for. Second, because DC will possibly be spending more time there than anywhere else on campus, so a quick peek couldn’t hurt. Believe it or not, some kids choose their school partly based on living options.
Having said that, I agree that it’s a security risk and a major inconvenience (nuisance) to current students, so I would be satisfied with a quick look at the common areas (lounges, laundry, hallways, etc.) and leave the bedrooms our (very cramped) imaginations.
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True. That said, a dining hall should not be a determining factor in choosing a college (although it’s about as silly as many other reasons listed on the 230 page thread), and if one really really wanted to experience the dining hall,many colleges will be happy to take the money and sell an over-priced meal ticket.
Gotta say i disagree with the moderator. Dining halls and dorms make or break my kids’ choices. Tcnj is a nonstart because of the food. Stonybrook is a nonstart because of the dorms.
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FWIW, our tour of UMich covered almost all of Central Campus, including a dorm room and eating at one of the dining halls. We had lunch there. I had wanted to sample the food and what was available for students, and I thought it was very good.
For a big pubic school, with a lot of tours, I was impressed with their general tour.
I would have loved a tour of the Big House, athletic facilities or even the student’s Recreation (IM) Building, which on a separate trip, I found out to be gorgeous.
@sushiritto - U Michigan was one of our favorite tours. They also hands down had the best engineering specific tour.
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At a big school with a lot of dorm choices, what are they going to show you? At CU, for example, they could show you the old, traditional dorms on campus. Sure, a few hundred freshman are going to live in those, but thousands are going to live in the other options,the student village with its own dining options that is about 1 mile off campus. The Honors housing might be nice, but are you going to be one of the ~200 who get to live there?
If you are basing your college choice on the dorms and dining, you should not take the general tour but arrange for a student to show you around.
Purdue shows a standard double in one of the dorms where the majority of freshmen live. Honestly, if you don’t get into one of those buildings, the room will be better ; )
I also think that all schools should have virtual tours of dorms on their websites or links to video tours.
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I got to tour my old college dorm recently, a private residence hall at UT. Wow! Almost literally gold-plated. Nothing’s too good for those Texan daughters, I guess! 
I agree that it would be great if all schools had virtual tours of their dorms. Living arrangements matter. I’m afraid for D21 to see S19’s dorm and eat his food. Her standards will be very high after that. That being said, he’s very very comfortable and, since school is particularly rigorous, it makes a big difference to have a very comfortable light-filled room and really good food. Being full pay also makes me care even more about the living arrangements. Room and board is expensive and paying for a dump or bad food is an issue.
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@momofsenior1 Still to this day, I have not seen North Campus at UMich. My kid is not an Engineering major, so seeing it was never a high priority. It’s great to know that you liked the tour there.
@twoinanddone You’re right, lots of dorm and dining choices at big schools. But we got to see most of the dorm choices (West, East, South and The Hill) on Central Campus at UMich. I thought they were fairly similar, since most had been remodeled, “bricky” kind of buildings.
As stated, we took the general tour, not the Engineering specific tour. So, we weren’t taken to see dorm choices on North Campus, which in the end, worked out perfectly since my kid was placed on Central.
We did get to sample breakfast in one dining hall and then lunch at a different dining hall. So I really liked that about UMich. For me, the quality of the food and having healthy choices was important.
We probably got more out of our time in the various dining halls than any other part of college visits. We tried to always squeeze in at least a snack if a meal didn’t work. It really had nothing to do with the food, but spending a bit of time observing actual students helped more with the “vibe” than traipsing around buildings.
That was important for my D as well. I will say, most of the schools we toured seemed to have good, flexible dining options. The one exception didn’t make D’s list.
@homerdog I wish all schools provide dining services as good as Bowdoin’s.
That being said, food/dorm will not be the make/break of DS’ college choices, he cares more about who eat the food/share the dorm a lot more.
Regarding dorms, on all the campuses I have ever toured, there is a variety of housing offered. We saw a sample dorm room on all but maybe two campuses out of 20 or so that we’ve toured. However, that one dorm room was not necessarily remotely like what my kids might’ve ended up in so the inside of the dorm room itself did not really factor in. For example, D17’s campus has freshmen housing right in the heart of campus as well as some that are a long walk/shuttle bus ride away. Some dorms are triples w/ensuite bathrooms, some are traditional doubles with hall baths, one dorm is all boys/all girls on different wings. S19’s campus is similar-all different types of dorms, but only one room shown on tour. They both had to fill out a housing form, ranking their top 3 choices. They both knew what they wanted as their top choice, but had to watch YouTube videos to see what the other options looked like.
The only school where we got to see multiple dorms was College of Charleston, but not on a campus tour. We were able to visit them during the accepted students weekend. That was the one school where the dorm tours did have a negative impact on D17’s impression of the school and I wholeheartedly agreed with her. She chose to go elsewhere, not for that reason. It’s not that the dorms were in poor condition, they were just very dark and depressing inside w/o much natural light. There was only one that we saw that was nice and bright, and of course, the most expensive of the choices.
I had a similar tour with my daughter at Lafayette, lots of narrative from the guide who skipped some key buildings, like the library which is stunning and worth prioritizing on the tour. Fortunately I have a son there and felt comfortable filling in the blanks on my own. I’m inclined to agree that no dorms are so bad that they should be a deciding factor. I’m a big fan of quality of dining facilities and quality of food so, while that’s likely not a deal breaker it might tip the scales for a kid who cares about that when the decision is on the margin. Tulane has a great new dining hall and my other kid raves about the food there.
At some colleges, dorms have a lot of mildew which raises concerns about mold (for example, Hendrix College) & some dorms have rats/ mice / rodents (a fairly recent complaint at Georgetown, for example).
But dorms can be a selling point. After all, parents & student are touring the school because it is of interest for other reasons, so why not consider additional aspects of that school ?
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Carleton showed us a dorm room(not bad), and gave us vouchers for the dining hall(good). Many other schools such as Chicago didn’t allow access to either. It didn’t stop my S from applying to one over the other, but it was annoying. We’ve travelled, in some cases thousands of miles, and we can’t see where S is going to eat and sleep over the next 4 years?