Dorm Choice - all frosh vs mixed grades?

<p>When I was in college, my school was insistant that there be NO all-freshman dorms. They said those dorms were wilder, and freshman missed out on having upperclassmen around to ask for advice. (They did have all freshmen eat in one dining hall, to help us get to know each other).</p>

<p>Son is deciding between two colleges. When he does make up his mind, both offer all-freshmen dorms and mixed grade dorms. I'm torn as to which is a better choice - would he meet more people in an all-freshman dorm, where kids don't already have an established circle of friends? (He's kind of quiet.) Or would it be better to have access to upperclassmen for advice?</p>

<p>The final decision is his, of course, but I'm wondering about pros and cons for each option.</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

<p>I went to a school that had all freshman dorms; my d. goes to a school that has all four years mixed.</p>

<p>I STRONGLY favor the latter approach. There is far more informal advising, consultation about courses, easily available info. about how to navigate a new environment. There are many more potential rolemodels and mentors, or simply examples of what a student's future experience might look like (both the good and the bad!) Lots more potential informal sharing about what an academic path might look like, and discussions of what happens after graduation. Also, generally speaking, lower levels of alcohol use.</p>

<p>ALL mixed grade dorms that I've seen have more than a quarter first-year students in them, because of study abroad, and the reality that some students leave the school. So you can access the best of both worlds.</p>

<p>My experience of an all-freshman situation, even with what was reputed to be an excellent system of junior advisors, was pretty much the blind leading the blind.</p>

<p>My D is still considering 3 schools. One has mixed only dorms, the other 2 freshmen only. I never thought about it until the Adcom told us that having upperclassmen in the dorm does help keep the dorm saner.</p>

<p>I'm with mini.</p>

<p>I, too went to a school with all freshman dorms. I've watched my daughter, both from a freshman and an upperclass perspective, live in mixed class dorms. I, too, strongly recommend the mixed class environment.</p>

<p>From the freshman perspective, it is uncharted waters to move from high school kid to college adult. The presence of role models is so valuable. They can actually talk to, live with, and brush their teeth next to living breathing successful college adults.</p>

<p>From the upperclass perspective, it is rewarding to pass along a little wisdom to "our freshmen".</p>

<p>From the overall perspective, it strengthens the college community enormously, by fostering a climate of learning from and mentoring each other.</p>

<p>My daughter shares my views, with one caveat. She does allow for the possibility that the size of the student body at a very large university may put a premium on the need to break the campus up into a smaller, more manageable chunk to provide some sense of belonging and affiliation. In other words, the student body may be so large that any sense of one campus community is impossible.</p>

<p>My son attends a school with both options - mixed or "first year experience". He chose the first year experience dorm and loves it. He says that it is not particularly wild, he has gotten to know his floormates very well, and that they kind of have a feeling of "we are all in this together." The RAs are more experienced and provide activities to help freshman adjust to college life.</p>

<p>BTW, the mentoring extends beyond college. Because my daugther and her friends got to know several seniors as freshmen, they got invited to a big weekend reunion in D.C., staying with several groups of recent grads a year or two out of school. So, as a rising junior, she got a nice look at the next stage in her life -- that of a recent college grad. When, I was a a freshman in a freshman apartheid dorm, I'm not sure I ever spoke a single word to a graduating senior. There weren't any in the dorm. There weren't any in the dining hall. There weren't any in my classes.</p>

<p>There are many possible configurations.
S1 was in a mixed, corridor-style dorm with an RA who does not seem to have done much to provide activities for freshmen or anyone else. So the integration of freshmen into the college community was very much up to the individual students themselves. He does not seem to have minded.</p>

<p>S2 was in an all-freshman dorm in a 5 person-suite. He became good friends with 3 of them, as well as with some of the guys in the suite across the hall and, thanks to a pro-active proctor, with other freshmen on other floors (the floors were single-sex, and alternated between all-men and all women).</p>

<p>My ideal would be mixed dorms with suites and proactive RAs.</p>

<p>But in terms of getting to know other students, ECs provide just such opportunities.</p>

<p>My two kids both had (and have) all freshman dorms. I think the way the college handles the freshman experience makes a big difference in how well the kids get integrated into the college. My son's college started off with two orientations, one optional and one not. The latter was building a Habitat for humanity house across the street from the freshman dorms. In addition they had small classes with advisors and freshman that met weekly for the first 6 weeks. My son had 13 kids in his group for undeclared students. All students also have to do a minimum of so many hours of community service and attend so many certain campus events for the first year.</p>

<p>This weekend, in fact, is another large campus service period: <a href="http://web.roanoke.edu/x12061.xml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.roanoke.edu/x12061.xml&lt;/a> He said he's doing the potato drop and Relay for Life.
According to my son, the RA's really do keep the partying out of the freshman dorms. My son is also a shy guy but the way his school is set up he was able to make friends pretty quickly and I think he has a good idea of the lay of the land, even without older students in his dorm.</p>

<p>My son had a very good experience in an all freshman dorm. His school put a lot of effort into "residential life" especially for freshman. There were several RAs, a Peer Health Advisor, a student who was a Computer Help person, and also a faculty house master whose family lived in a residence adjacent to the dorm. There were a lot of dorm-wide planned activities and dorm-wide pride and bonding. Although they went their separate ways after freshman year, the dorm held "reunion parties" each year until they were seniors and he made many permanent friends in that dorm. I know he keeps in touch with a least some of the upperclass students who were staff in that freshman dorm.</p>

<p>On the other hand, my daughter did not think that the all-freshman dorms at her original college (which she later transferred from) were such a great idea. At the school, the freshman dorms were in a separate area away from the other dorms. The atmosphere was probably a lot wilder than in the upper class dorms. </p>

<p>So I can see both sides of this question.</p>

<p>I, too, went to a college with all freshman dorms. We had dreadful, ineffective junior advisors, so our suite of girls was kind of on our own. We ended up knowing a lot of upperclassmen, in part because sophomore guys seemed to spend a good bit of time prowling in the vicinity of freshman girls' entries. (Some of them were actually nice guys.) At one point, I probably had more friends who were older than I was than I had in my own class. After freshman year, I lived in mixed housing with sophomores, juniors and seniors, so even if I hadn't gotten to know any older students while I was a freshman, I certainly would have as a sophomore, and I did.</p>

<p>My D is currently in an all-freshman dorm with a good proctor, and things like drinking don't seem to be out of control at all. She has gotten to know a lot of upperclassmen through her extra-curricular activities, and I know they've been very big sister-like to the freshmen. </p>

<p>I suppose in a situation in which both all-freshman and mixed housing were offered at the same college, I would probably prefer the mixed arrangement, but I don't think it'd be a major factor in choosing a college. There are many opportunities to get to know upperclassmen as a freshman, including sports and other extracurricular activies, especially ones that involve some out of town travel.</p>

<p>Back when I attended Harvard you could choose to live with all freshmen in the Yard or in mixed dorms at Radcliffe. Harvard dorms were suites often organized around entryways (i.e. vertically) instead of floors. Radcliffe had singles and doubles on halls where people tended to leave their doors open if they were feeling at all social. I chose the latter. I liked having upperclassmen around and don't remember an excessive party atmosphere. Each dorm within the house also had a tradition of milk and cookies on Sunday nights and there was a common TV and kitchen. Harvard has since switched to housing all freshmen together. They believe it produces a more cohesive class which I think in turn results in greater alumni giving. Everyone I know who lived in the Yard seems to have been as happy with their experience as I was with mine. I do think that they do know more of their classmates and perhaps have a slightly stronger class sense as well.</p>

<p>BTW, the RA thing and mixed dorms are not mutually exclusive. Every dorm at my daughter's school has RAs, whether freshmen live in that dorm or not. Schoolwide, there is one RA for every 26 students or so living on campus.</p>

<p>Same in my d's school. PLENTY of "dorm" bonding takes places in the context of students from all four years, with the added benefit of the ability to pass on traditions firsthand. (Some of the houses have elaborate traditions of handing down "cult" objects from seniors to first-years.) There are also "big-sister/little-sister" pairings.</p>

<p>None of this necessarily happens with ECs. </p>

<p>I don't think it is a matter of whether one is "happy" with the arrangement, but of the opportunities that are afforded as a result.</p>

<p>I'm going to disagree with several of the posters who have proceeded me. I'd recommend the all-frosh floor, especially at a larger school. Its a chance to get to make a circle of friends at a time when everyone's in the same boat, friends that you can have all thru the school years. The part about advice from older students is valid, but there's another way to get that -- join clubs. You'll see plenty of examples of what other students have done to take advantage of the opportunities the college has to offer, with the bonus that the members of the clubs (career, recreation, volunteer work, etc) will be in areas in which you share an interest in as opposed to the random interests of the handful of older students living on a mixed-years floor.</p>

<p>My school requires freshmen housing. In fact, it goes to the extreme of putting them on a separate campus. I absolutely loved it, as most students do. Coming in as a freshman, it's awesome to meet all sorts of people who are trying to figure things out like you are. :D</p>

<p>In my first year at #1 LAC, I never saw or met anyone in my living situation who was filling out a fellowship application, was trying to figure out whether to go to grad or professional school, had just come back from a summer internship, had been in a study abroad program, had to deal with the financial aid office because of changed family circumstances, was on academic or disciplinary probation and having to deal with it, had been cut from a sports team, had changed majors in the middle, had dealt with a particularly ornery professor successfully, had already figured out how to deal with a particular dietary restriction, had left school and come back, was in recovery from a substance abuse problem begun at school, or was writing a thesis.</p>

<p>And while I may have been "happy", my education most definitely was lacking as a result.</p>

<p>In my d's situation, she had all of that AND lots of first-year students around her, both in her living space, and in classes.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Its a chance to get to make a circle of friends at a time when everyone's in the same boat, friends that you can have all thru the school years.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't know why anyone would think the same sort of freshman bonding doesn't occur in mixed-class dorms? </p>

<p>It's not like there is one freshman per dorm. My daughter, now finishing up her third year, has exactly the same sort of circle of friends from freshman year.</p>

<p>The freshmen on her hall first semester did everything together, including going to dinner every night in a pack. The friendships with seniors actually started to grow a month or so into the deal.</p>

<p>Freshmen dorms are only single grade dorms for one year out of four. .
With the sports activities, political groups, singing groups, literary clubs, religious groups, work study ,and all the parties, there seem to be a lot of opportunities to get to know upperclassmen in the first year. My kids' classes have been pretty mixed, as well. </p>

<p>I don't think this is a big issue. There may be advantages and disadvantages either way, but there are also ways of compensating.</p>

<p>The daughter of a good friend of mine goes to a school with no freshmen dorms. She is absolutely miserable. She blames this on the dorm situation.</p>

<p>It might just be her college, but the upper classman have shown no interest in meeting the freshmen. Doors are closed; there's no social activity. She hasn't even met many of the kids in her dorm. The RAs do nothing to foster socializing. She has seriously considered transferring.</p>

<p>Based on her experience, I would be cautious about mixed-class living situations. I'm sure it works in some places -- but her experience shows that it doesn't always work.</p>

<p>You mean there are no other freshmen in her dorm? Or that more than a quarter of the students aren't other freshman? That would be pretty strange.</p>