<p>What are the differences among the honors dorms? Do they each have different personalities and advantages? Can a student make a specifc request? A room without a sink seems like a major inconvenience.</p>
<p>Here’s a post I made about dorms in general. I’m including the whole post, because you can get a feel for other dorms and honors dorm lifestyle as well.</p>
<p>Also, Blanton is the only Honors dorm without a in-room sink. I consider that a plus, because I’m a light sleeper, and running water + morning routine wakes me up. No sink isn’t really a bit issue, because the restroom is close by. It also build better community because people venture outside of the rooms more. Blanton/Andrew basement is like a suite with restroom right across the hall and lounging area.</p>
<h2>You can’t make request, it’s luck of the draw. If you are a freshmen, most likely you’ll end up in Blanton, because upper classman will can make request and when you are older, you enjoy the peace and quiet a bit more. Blanton is more of a party dorm of the bunch. It was pretty bad my freshmen year because of an absentee RA. I think we had more drinking incidents than Jester and we are much smaller. Some LAH A-Holes (nothing against liberal arts) would play the drum 3 AM in the morning on a school night or get so *****faced that they would puke all over the carpet and then rip it to shreds. The absentee RA didn’t help. I bet the janitors hated them. But you gotta experience it, other floors and years were fine. All in all, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I lived in Blanton 3 out of 4 years in college, but in retrospect, I probably should have moved out with my friends after my sophomore year.</h2>
<p>College is what you make of it. If your son is the partying type, I don’t think going to a different college is going to keep him away for it. I know some pretty heavy drinkers at MIT and Harvard is famous for the partying. </p>
<p>Austin is great college town, one of the best (ranked to be the best several times). I’ve lived in Madison (U of Wisconsin) and Ann Arbor (U of Michigan) and Austin still holds the crown for me. It offers a lot of cultural events. It has a great athletics program. Trust me, college football/sports trash-talking is always popular the the workplace after college. Texas is ultra elite in all of the major sports (football, basketball, baseball, swimming). The academic curriculum is as good as any top tier public university. Most of the programs are highly ranked (Business, Engineering, Computer Science, etc.), which makes it easier to change your mind about majors. The TEXAS brand is very strong internationally. It has a very temperate climate, so you can enjoy the outdoors all year around. It is in a great location for technical majors because of the technology firms around Austin. It’s one of the only liberal schools in Texas (Rice would be another). You’ll be sure to find more anti-bush signs here than anywhere else in Texas. And Austin is the perfect place to do so with it’s diverse and eclectic population. I personally believe college is not only about the academics, but also about finding yourself. It’s about transforming from a naive boy to a sophisticated citizen. UT definitely has all the ingredients that will aid the transformation. I would strongly recommend you to visit Austin and find out for yourself. </p>
<p>Here’s my impression of the dorms:
Jester - loud and dark, not conducive to study. almost every lives there. some people love it because it’s very social. But I like my quiet study space with comfy couches, oak tables, and a fireplace. Although one of my favorite study area in in the 1st and 2nd (East side?) study lounge, which as comfy couches, large glass sliding doors and a balcony style arrangement (2nd floor is the balcony). The halls are a bit poorly lit for my taste.
San Jacinto - new and quiet. The main study areas are well lit and the lobby study areas are conducive to coffee and studying. It’s more expensive and tend to attract the higher maintenance and more snobbish kids.
Duren - too new for me to know, but I would expect to be similar to San Jacinto
Simkins - probably the worst dorm as far as locations goes.
Moore-Hill - good location and before it was co-ed it had great community, I don’t know about after the integration. It may be louder now that the outdoor pool (which is really amazing, UT put millions into those pools) is right back Moore-Hill.
Whitis Court - a quiet all freshman dorm.
Littlefield - conservative all girls dorm, but great close-knit community. My favorite as far as architecture and building lay out. It has a cool library with books from the 40s. It’s the safest dorm for girls. Most dorms you can tailgate in, Littlefield girls will kick you out even if you are studying in their library. They are part of the honors quad, but residents are not in honors nor do they interact with the honors kids.
Prathers, Brackenridge, Roberts - good location, VERY QUIET to the point of being anti-social. Brackenridge has the biggest rooms of all the dorms. Rooms are organized into 4-6 per section, so it’s hard to social.
Andrews, Blanton, Carothers (honors dorm) - near and dear to my heart, it’s semi-quiet (Blanton is the loudest, Carothers is the quietest; Blanton has the smallest rooms, Carothers has the biggest rooms). It has GREAT community, partly because the honors students take many of the same entry level honors classes, which is MUCH smaller than the regular classes (I only had 20ish people in my freshman Calculus class versus 300-500 students). It has a very interesting collection of people from the nerdy engineering and CS majors to the hippie tree-hugging Plan II majors to the fratty Business Honors kids. It has an ivy league feel to the place. My friends who visit me always say that it’s nothing like the rest of the campus.</p>
<p>Oh, for the honors dorms, you son can try to apply even if he is not in honors. The dorms go through 2 year cycles. One year it would be packed and they’ll have a lottery for non-freshmen; the next year, they’ll accept some non-honors students. That’s because students usually stay two years before moving off campus.</p>
<p>Thanks for that really detailed post. It really makes me feel more confident with where I’ve chosen to stay (the honors quad) and my runner-up Moore-Hill (one of my classmates lives there. He’s bhp, but likes the proximity to the Gym and probably Jester since he’s social).</p>
<p>I’m not a Plan II hippie or a BHP frat boy yet, so does this transformation happen once you get there? And what would you call it, a Frippie? ;-p</p>
<p>I have been considering going greek, though. I think I’ll make that decision on campus.</p>
<p>Not to Hijack a thread but tips about frats would be nice.</p>
<p>Liu: Thanks, great information. After reading about the dorms on line it seemed that Blanton would be the least desirable but also the one most likely to be assigned. It is good to hear that except for the drummers you liked living there, and that in spite of the drummers you chose to stay there. We never considered that there was an andvantage to a sink free room!</p>
<p>lol @ Rewind… I’m the same way! I just got into Plan II, but I’m sort of a mix of everything. Let’s put it this way: my three favorite stores are J.Crew, Urban Outfitters, and Buffalo Exchange (in Austin…the Dallas one is cool, too). hahaha</p>
<p>Maybe that’s why I like the liberal arts: a little of everything :p</p>
<p>Slight hijack for rewind:</p>
<ol>
<li>Don’t call them frats or you won’t get a bid anywhere good.</li>
<li>Don’t wait until you get on campus to look around or you won’t get a bid anywhere good.
Talk to the people you know in chapters on campus for advice on rush.</li>
</ol>
<p>Most of the BHP kids in the quad aren’t the fratty ones…</p>
<p>but the honors dorms are all pretty much three wings of the same dorm. It’s one community, and freshmen can’t pick what dorm they want.</p>
<p>Blanton usually has more freshmen but this year there are more upperclassmen in Blanton than normal. I’m in Carothers and I have a few great friends on my floor, and a really chill RA, but I don’t have most of my fun in the Quad. It is very convenient to the Drag and West Campus, though, which is a definite plus.</p>