<p>Hey, this is a question for anyone who has been to the school or who knows the answer.</p>
<p>Im looking into a lot of colleges, but one of the major things is that I do not want to live in a dorm. I want to be able to cook my own food, so I would rather live in an apartment off campus or some kind of housing that you had a fridge and it’s more like your own house.</p>
<p>When I go on the college websites, it’s very confusing and I can’t seem to find a straight answer, so any help would be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>Yes, Brown requires that you live on campus as a freshman. I think the majority of private colleges and liberal arts schools require that you live on campus. In my opinion, dorm life, and the friends you make in dorms, is a huge part of the college experience and I wouldn’t recommend missing that to anyone.</p>
<p>Of course, if you are wealthy, you can pay for the dorm and get an apartment.</p>
<p>Living on campus is required for freshman and sophomores. You can get off-campus permission before that time if you’re a commuter student within 30 miles of campus or if you’re married. Off-campus living is really catered for rising seniors and a few juniors. Even if you do live off-campus, for whatever reason, you must pay an off-campus residential fee to the University. </p>
<p>And living in dorms doesn’t preclude you from using the kitchen on every floor/building.</p>
<p>As a frosh, you also have to have a 14 meals /wk or equivalent meal plan. The only exceptions are for commuter students, or rare medical cases. (Which don’t include gluten-free, kosher or vegan diets. The students I know with those diets have fared well with a combination of meal plan and eating in the dorms, at Hillel etc.) There will be a kitchen somewhere relatively close to your dorm room in your dorm, in some state of cleanliness. After freshman year you will have also the possibility of some interest houses that do group cooking.
An important part of the whole freshman experience is communal living and eating, so consider rethinking your plans.</p>
<p>All frosh have to be on a meal plan, but it doesn’t have to be 14/week or equivalent. You can do a lower plan, though it considering price per meal, it seldom makes sense to do so.</p>
<p>My daughter had a kitchen that was fairly well supplied just down the hall from her freshman dorm. I made a big lasagne one spring break with no lack of cookware. </p>
<p>She got permission to move off campus Jr year, but she was only a block away. After cooking for herself a semester, she found it was helpful to do an on campus partial plan and just supplement at her place. It saved time a lot of time but it also let her go to The Ratty, which is a social place to meet up with friends. She is a sort of foodie, being from San Francisco, but decided the kinship was a bit more important than the food.</p>