<p>At S's school there is no typical dorm room. Each dorm is quite different. Only one has cinderblocklike walls. Further, all dorm rooms in the same dorm may not be the same either. Many schools offer virtual tours and floor plans. Last year S was in a large double, I would say 15 X 15 or larger, own bathroom. Next year he is in a triple, which features a living area, dining area and small kitchen as well as separate very large bedroom with three beds, and its own bathroom, and this room is right across the hall from his own room, in the SAME dorm.</p>
<p>I hope none of you complaining about dorm quality and on other thread, the qualit of admin offices are also complaining about the cost of higher education!! :)</p>
<p>When I went to a tour at my school last summer, the guide showed us a room from the building that had the smallest rooms on campus; so it's important to remember that there may be better options. Sometimes the newer/bigger dorms are farther away from the main campus buildings and on tours they don't want to make everyone walk down another two blocks. Going online and checking out the other options definitely helped me choose the best available dorm on campus.</p>
<p>Apparently college administrators must equip these freshman dorms so as to withstand the abuse of the lowest commom denominator in the freshman class. Specifically those students who may destroy walls (ie., the perverbial fist through drywall), break the economically priced pine furnishings, (easily and inexpensively replacable), and ruin carpets in various ways, thus the use of industrial strength tile flooring. So I guess from an economic point of view a lot of what I saw makes sense. Maybe from a saftey standpoint as well. But it was still powerfully ugly!</p>
<p>Our D got placed in her 3rd choice dorm. Her room was on the top floor and not air conditioned. Beds were bunked and almost no closet space as the dorm was built sometime in the 1920's. We were all upset as she had hoped to be in the newly built suite-style dorm. Turns out, she says it's the best thing that happened to her. No one stayed in their rooms (too hot for the first few weeks) so everyone hung out in the common areas and bonded. She felt the dorm led to a much stronger cameraderie and when asked about applying for the brand new dorm for sophomore year described it as "like a hospital". Liked original dorm so much that she 's going back there for sophomore year, along with roommate and a bunch of others! So much about this process that's unpredictable - seems to me that we do "due dilligence" then just have to hope for the best and sometimes it really does work out.</p>
<p>I lived in an institutional cinder-block dorm thirtysomething years ago, and it didn't kill me.</p>
<p>My son did the same for the last two years, and it didn't kill him, either.</p>
<p>The long corridors where 30 people share a bathroom are actually a GOOD thing from a freshman's point of view. They provide lots of opportunities to meet people, which is a high priority for freshmen. Think back to your own college years or talk to current college students, and I think you'll find that most of them met the people they would share suites and apartments with as upperclassmen on their freshman floors. The bigger that floor, the better.</p>
<p>The size of the rooms is an issue for storage, though, and I think it's worse now than it was in our time because the need to put electronic equipment where it can be attached to various cables limits the variety of furniture arrangements.</p>
<p>My son had a single his second year (two-thirds the size of a double) and it was glorious. He was able to store his BICYCLE in the room, as well as all the usual stuff. But the year before, in the double, there was no room to move even though the kids did the standard things like putting the TV on top of the refrigerator and storing the things they rarely used under the beds.</p>
<p>Institutional prison-like construction is probably a good idea. I was in my son's dorm room once when the RA came to do the end-of-the-year checkout. Her checklist was full of items like "window broken?" and "door missing?" Apparently, some of the kids are absolutely brutal when it comes to how they treat the dorm rooms. The dorms NEED to be virtually indestructible.</p>
<p>We had a completely different take on the "dorm" situation for S, who will start at USC in a few weeks. He will be going into the Radisson hotel (a nice business-type hotel) across the street from campus for freshman year. USC will have 5-6 floors taken completely for students. Consequently his room:</p>
<ol>
<li>is much bigger than the best standard dorm room, and he has only one roommate.</li>
<li>has a private bath for the two of them.</li>
<li>has both maid service (2X per week) and room service.</li>
<li>has a heated pool, jacuzzi, and nice weight room.</li>
<li>has advanced and effective security.</li>
<li>has powerful airconditioning.</li>
</ol>
<p>When S was small, he used to tell us that the ideal vacation would be to go to a hotel, any hotel, and live with room service for a week. No need for any of the cultural/historical stuff we parents were always shoving down his throat. Just the hotel, the pool, and the room-service.</p>
<p>At this point, he could not be happier with his new "dorm."</p>
<p>Think my son could have adjusted to that! ^^</p>
<p>Oh, man. USC sounds REALLY nice.</p>
<p>I visited my friend's DD's room at Tufts (there, I named a college) and it was okay--a LARGE double with big closets. My DD stayed at Lafayette (Easton, PA) last summer and the dorm there was really nice--she got a big private room with a big walk-in closet! This summer she's at Franklin and Marshall in Lancaster, PA, and she's got a much smaller, much less nice private room, but it's still private and she's happy. </p>
<p>Of course most of Easton is underwater right now...probably not Lafayette, because it's on a big hill, but it's got to be pretty bad there this summer.</p>
<p>One other comment, at some schools if your child can get in the honors program they get a nicer dorm. DS is going to Northeastern in the fall and they just finished building a new honors dorm...So, suite like rooms with full kitchen, air conditioning etc. It wasn't the deciding factor by any means but it sure helped make Northeastern look more attractive.</p>
<p>reasonabledad:</p>
<p>Watch out though - the room service isn't included in USC's meal plan. He could really rack up some bills if he actually uses it. So people don't get the wrong impression, the majority of students at USC aren't housed in the hotel and I think it's used primarily to accommodate the overflow that many U's are facing nowadays.</p>
<p>No NJres. I was in Rhode Island at an LAC not mid New York. I can't imagine four freshman living together without there being problems, especially where space is so limited. According to the tour guide this non-Ivy LAC spends a lot of hours matching kids with common interests to alleviate just such problems. I would think does Holy Cross, a more expensive LAC, attempts to make smiliar matches. However, when I asked the daughter of a friend of mine attending Holy Cross how she was getting along with her freshman roomate she glared at me calling her roomate a "fat whore". She went onto explain she was trying AVOID spending time in her dorm room. Nice. I think matching up hundreds or thousands of freshman with compatible roomates is an exercise in futility. People tend not to be painfully honest when answering the questions asked. This was no doubt the case with my freind's daughter's roomate who failed to check the "I am a fat whore box" on the questionaire.... kidding. I'm hoping this thread won't be hijacked by bad roomate stories. My only point was the dorms I saw paled when compared to the rest of what was, a fairly plush campus.</p>
<p>Honors dorm at U of Florida- carpeted, suite-style (2 bedrooms share bathroom), in-room vanities, maid service once per week (cleans vanities, bathrooms, vacuums carpet), walk-in closets, brand new, pristine, clean, great location.</p>
<p>
[quote]
when I asked the daughter of a friend of mine attending Holy Cross how she was getting along with her freshman roomate she glared at me calling her roomate a "fat whore".
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hmmm...I wonder who the problem roommate really was?!</p>
<p>We have toured a bunch of colleges. Most dorm rooms are pretty similar. Some rooms are a little larger, some suite-style, and some only offer the community bathrooms to freshmen. Overall, they do not seem vastly different.
Keep in mind that the larger rooms at some schools are the first to be tripled.</p>
<p>My D and I visited very few dorms when she was looking at colleges. As I remember it, she didn't want to be so shallow that she made the decision based on the dorms!</p>
<p>The room we saw at Duke was one of 3 rooms on that floor -2 doubles and a single.</p>
<p>Having had three of my 4 Ds live in dorms so far, of various kinds and at various schools, I can say that who the roommate is will be far more important to your child's happiness than what the dorm room looks like. Having said that, none of my Ds has gone to a school which has the quads you describe. None has had any particular problems adapting to living with a roommate, and these are kids who have grown up in the lap of luxury with their own rooms since they were very young. I wouldn't worry too much about dorms, chances are your child won't either.</p>
<p>" who the roommate is will be far more important"</p>
<p>Alwaysamom, That is so true!</p>
<p>Also, in our experience with respect to freshmen housing, we did not notice any difference between a $40000+ school, state school, or less expensive private school. The dorm rooms were about the same, even though some had choices of suites, or community bathrooms, some rooms were slightly larger. We did not see any pattern between COA and quality of a freshman room.</p>
<p>Agree alwaysamom and nemom. Have had 3 in college from very small privates to larger privates and many, many camp experiences through the years--seems to be no correlation between price and dorm facilities. And yes the roommate is the most important piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately many times that seems to be the biggest stress of the freshman year. All the rooms I have seen are too small for 2 people IMO. I believe most I saw were built before the days of computers, TVs, and clothing selections our kids travel with. When I think back to my dorm (which is still in use)--we had no computer, no TV, no frig, no microwave, many fewer clothes and one typewriter we shared--bet that room looks alot more crowded now!</p>