Read the university specific pages on CC to get a general idea of when the colleges you/your student is looking at needs to apply for housing in order to get a decent selection. We did end up putting down three housing deposits because S hadn’t decided on his school but housing choice would get slim if he didn’t apply early. In our case the non-refundable deposits portion of the deposits were $25, $35, and $100 and the latter two we put down more. In one case we actually had to enroll him to fill out a housing application and then withdraw.
^^^ Thanks. I definitely will. Some of the university specific pages on CC are fairly active, others much less so. Perhaps it is seasonal.
I think it cost me a few $100, even 10 years ago, to secure housing at our flagship.
Looking back, I wonder if I could have used this sum as a Charitable Contribution on taxes.
One Step-D lived in a triple room in a hall that was designated for freshman, with a cube-style layout, at a mid-sized, nice state school. No air conditioning and single-sexed bathrooms per cube unit. Step-D connected with one her roommates through Facebook and they were randomly matched with the third. I expected some issues with three girls in a room, and was worried about Step-D and her chosen roommate maybe unintentionally leaving out the third roommate, Step-D was not unhappy with the freshman experience programs but she definitely did not feel they were useful for her, though she did say that they were a great way to get to know a lot of people at once, even if you didn’t like them. Luckily Step-D had a great Resident Assistant who was planning lots of events for her freshman! The experience went well for older Step-D and while she and her first roommate still live together, she and their third roommate (who lives off campus now) still have a really great friendship, and the girls are actually planning on vacationing together after graduation.
Other Step-D attends the large flagship school. She also connected with her roommate via Facebook and they lived in a standard double. The hall had air conditioning and bathrooms were shared between 2-3 rooms. There was a classroom and a small convience/deli type place in her dorm, which was a mix of Freshman and Upperclassmen. At Step-D’s school there are over fifteen hall options. Half are located in one area of campus and are considered to be “quiet” dorms and Step-D knew she didn’t want that her first year.
Step-D and her roommate were able to coexist nicely, but Step-D was definitely a lot more sociable and made a lot more friends that she grew pretty close to. They were able to live together nicely for the year and they still talk occasionally, but they stopped rooming together after Freshman year. All in all though, she was not displeased with her residence life.
D just finished first semester at a large state U. Shares a decent size room in Honors Dorm with one roommate, bathroom shared with RA who is in a single room on opposite side of bath (so 3 girls, 1 bath, which is great). Many common areas and study rooms scattered around. D loves these rooms for hanging out and studying because she can see people, whereas roommate studies in the room almost exclusively. It works for them: roommate can stay up late with her desk light on and D can sleep just fine as her bed is lofted (also she can sleep through just about anything).
Roommate was a random match and has worked out fine. However, D will live with someone else next year. Current roommate goes home at least every other weekend and my kid, who is 10 hours away from home, didn’t come home until Thanksgiving–so she wanted a roommate who would be around more as next year she will be in an on-campus apartment.
Re the Honors housing: Initially, it was a big selling point. The building is pretty new and in a great central location with a large cafeteria on the first floor plus short walk to library, student union, other eateries. However, “Quiet time is all the time,” is a slogan of their RM and honestly the current dorm–all honors, maybe 400 first year students and 100+ upperclassmen–is too sedate for my kid (but all the hard work going on around was probably a positive influence).
Next year will also be Honors LLC (had to apply for housing and while this wasn’t her first choice, it seems very nice nonetheless), but the building houses more than just Honors College students, so she hopes it will be more lively. On-campus housing isn’t guaranteed, but anecdotally, the Honors kids usually get on-campus at least through Year 3. Her friends who got on-campus apartment assignments for next year took them. A few were assigned to the dorm for Year 2 even though they requested apartments; some are OK with that and some are trying to move off-campus.
I was a residentiall hall director at an Ivy League university. Our halls had all kinds of arrangements, but there were four residence halls a first-year student could live in. Two were corridor-style residence halls with singles arranged down the corridor, and shared bathrooms, kitchens, and lounge areas. One was a more traditional residence hall: students shared a double room, and the doubles were organized with two in a “pod” and the four students shared a bathroom. Incoming first-year students ranked their residence hall preferences on their housing form. Most of them got their first choice, and the overwhelming majority got the first or second choice. That usually meant that students who absolutely did not want a double didn’t have to have one.
And one was the living learning center, which was suite-style; it usually had something like 4 singles and two doubles arranged around a central living area, bathroom, and kitchen. You had to apply to live in the LLC before the start of the school year, and the LLC was the only building on campus that had students from all four years living in it. So your suite might be a mix of freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Some of the LLC suites are specifically set aside for engineering majors.
Our university guaranteed housing for four years as long as a student stayed on campus in the residential system - if they moved off campus they were no longer guaranteed housing for remaining years. Something like 95% of students lived on campus. The housing selection system for years 2-4 was kind of insane - the students at this university were competitive and would make anything into a competition, including housing. That’s because there was a lot of variability in the second through fourth-year housing choices - a lucky sophomore could end up in a single in a suite-style building with some of his closest friends, or in a studio double in an apartment-style building; an unlucky sophomore ended up in a corridor-style double. Housing numbers were assigned randomly by class year but there were all different ways students plotted to get better places (a sophomore who went into choice with juniors or seniors got to pick before the other sophomores, for example). HOWEVER, all of the students who wanted a place would get one - it just might not be their first choice (or second, or third).
One thing I learned is that there are no universal rules. You might think that the double-occupancy freshman building I mentioned above was disliked, but it wasn’t - it was one of the most popular freshman dorms because it was widely known as the social one, even amongst high school students who hadn’t been to the school yet. The nicest single-occupancy freshman dorm actually had a reputation for having weird, quiet, nerdy students live there. Some students really love sharing their space with someone else, and others preferred a single on a corridor-style hall so they didn’t have to interact with each other very much. And sometimes academics came into play - more than a few pre-med juniors told me they chose their housing assignment because they wanted to have a private, quiet place to study and grind. On the other hand, many serious students really wanted the social atmosphere of one of our more social dorms.
It just really depended on the student.
One thing I will note is that roommate conflicts are actually less common than you might think. A lot of people tell horror stories, but they wouldn’t be telling a story unless they had a story to tell, you know? Most roommates are normal and most people get along fine; most conflicts are minor, and the students work it out themselves. Even most of the conflicts that actually rose to my level were worked out with the roommates (sometimes with the RA mediating the conversation).
Thanks @juillet (and others) for investing the time in sharing so much information. Very helpful. Each new post tells me something we didn’t know.
My D lives in an older building my guess is circa 1960’s. All doubles, freshman and floors by sex. Loves her roommate who I think she found on facebook. Dorm itself is pretty dreadful: dingy, really small with awful lighting. However, she chose living in the crappy dorms to be on the social side of campus. Her floor does not appear to be very social with one another. That said she is happy with her choice and can’t wait to get off campus as most students do since housing is notoriously bad at her school. Off campus housing though is a sticker shock for next year.
D just finished up her first semester of sophomore year. Freshman year, she lived in a suite that consisted of four singles with shared living room and bathroom. Three roommates were self selected via FB page, and fourth was random. They all loved each other in the beginning, then one got a boyfriend. Apparently sextiling started (with complaints that the boyfriend left the bathroom quite dirty, etc.) and things got tense. D detested boyfriend and was only cordial to that particular roommate.
Fast forward to sophomore year. D rooms in on campus apartment, sharing a one bedroom with one other student (one of her old roommates from freshman year). Everyone is friends again and D considers the “boyfriend” as one of her best friends. Go figure?!
On campus housing required for the first two years. Plenty of luxury housing immediately off campus for the remaining years. D will be studying abroad next year though.
Would love to hear more from parents or students home for the holidays and sharing 1st semester stories.
D2 lives in a classic cramped freshman cinderblock cube with one room mate - a slim, wealthy, attractive, uber-popular blonde. They have little to nothing in common, including friends. Room mate has had large groups of friends coming by and at one point had the campus drug dealer over and bought a good amount of cocaine while D was in the room. On the other hand, she thinks it would be wrong to sexile D. And D isn’t perfect, either – she can stay up quite late studying and needs the quiet of her room, which has disturbed room mate at times ; also needs many alarms to wake up. The good news is that they do try to be considerate of each other. Guess they won’t be rooming together next year, though!
@cheeringsection OK, I’ll play along. D1 is a freshman attending a college far from home and lives in a traditional dorm: double rooms with a shared hallway bathroom. She was matched with her roommate through those interest/lifestyle forms submitted prior to matriculating. The room is nice as far as dorm rooms go… hardwood floors, window overlooking a lake, views to downtown.
No problem with the shared bathroom situation, although the shared laundry facility is another story. Musty washers and clothes left in the machines.
Roommate is very quiet and not interactive with D or anyone else. D tolerates this but doesn’t consider her a friend (yet).
D’s already making plans to room with other friends next year and hopes to get into a quad, on-campus apartment designated for upperclassmen. She’s looking forward to not being on the meal plan and having the opportunity to make a dinner or two in a “real kitchen”. Going to a grocery store will require a car. Fortunately, there are many restaurant choices off campus… and these won’t be any more expensive than her current meal plan.
My daughter lives in a renovated dorm in a corner room double that was originally a triple so she definitely lucked out! However, what I wanted to add to this conversation were two benefits that I lacked when I was in school and didn’t even occur to me until I saw them. One is a communal kitchen - one per floor - with individual cabinets assigned to each room, and my daughter has really enjoyed the chance to bake cookies and a birthday cake (for her roommate) as well as being invited to other student’s holiday dinners made in their dorm kitchen (and thankfully there is a supermarket in walking distance). The other nice thing is that there is also a laundry room on every floor so no having to lug laundry up and down to the basement or to another building and its right next to the TV room and kitchen so one can definitely multitask if one wants. And there is no cost (although I know its folded into the room/board rates) so one doesn’t have to save up quarters as in my day.
^ good points, MomofM. D has a communal dorm kitchen but no personal cabinets (they do have their own cubbies in the bathroom though, so everyone leaves their basket of toiletries in there). Laundry at her school is not free but it is put on a card, and there’s an app that lets them know when machines are available, when the laundry is done, etc.
Son is in a traditional double. On his floor, there is a women’s bathroom, a men’s bathroom and an E-system bathroom, which anyone can use. He gets along very well with his roommate, which is a miracle, because my son is an introvert and kind of a loner, and can be very prickly.
He told me after they moved in that his roommate and his parents were a little concerned because my son is an evangelical Christian and his roommate is gay, but once they “outed” themselves to each other, (and reassured each other that they aren’t bigoted toward anyone) things worked out very well.
They’re both hard-working and tidy. My son owns a dustbuster, and his roommate has a stash of Lysol wipes. They’re both honest about when they need the other guy to get out so they can study or be alone. Neither is into drinking or drugs.
They let the housing office pair them, and I think they did a very good job.
D is in a very small double in a dorm built in the 1920s. It’s a residence type dorm system where the kids generally live in their dorm all four years. She’s on the fourth floor, no elevator and no AC. The kids are all in same sex dorms and are randomly matched. It has worked out great for her - she and her roommate are good friends (although very different on paper!) and she has made friends with the girls on her floor. Unless there is a single that’s open (D is a night owl and roomie is not) she and roomie will live together next year.
I just want to echo @Magnetron’s advice to use the Facebook page (or whatever tool the school uses) for finding a roommate, rather than relying on the housing office. My son lucked out (see post #34), but many kids don’t, because the housing questionnaire is too vague, too general, or students say what they wish were true rather than what actually is true. By contrast, the student-generated housing questionnaire my daughter filled out was much more in-depth, which made it easier to spot deal-breaking incompatibilities. She found a great roommate in July before her first year, and they are still friends, even though they are two very different people and are now studying in different countries.