<p>I am a prospective member of the Class of 2014, and lately I have been researching dorms and meals at Harvard. Given the dearth of information and student testimony I could find, I'm hoping that some of you can comment on the dorms and meals (and living in general) at Harvard.</p>
<p>Some questions I have off the top of my mind include:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Although this question is entirely subjective, how is the food at Annenberg? I can see the menu online, but the food in actuality is a different story. </p></li>
<li><p>Do you consider the Harvard meal plan (unlimited meals) to be a boon or a disadvantage? I like to cook sometimes, and I also want to ask whether or not the kitchens at Harvard are (generally) tidy and neat, and not just usable.</p></li>
<li><p>Can one bring others in for lunch/dinner as part of the meal plan, or must one pay $10+ for every guest each time?</p></li>
<li><p>How is the food variation? I get wary of American foods quickly, and wonder if it would be sustainable to eat rice/sushi all the time.</p></li>
<li><p>I've heard that the dorms vary in size and structure, but it seems that the general consensus is that they need renovations. I also looked at the dorm websites, but I am interested in student opinion. How are the dorms/beds at Harvard? Is there "enough" room? Are the dorms merely usable, or are they great?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Any other opinions on dorms/meals are welcome! Thank you.</p>
<p>Depends on who you ask. For me, I’d say Annenberg food ranges from unpleasant to slightly pleasant. Some of their entrees are bizarre (no Saigon Bamboo Beef for me please), but that’s what hot dogs, hamburgers, salads and yogurt are for. </p>
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<p>If by guest you mean Harvard students who don’t eat at that dining hall, free. If by guests you mean non-Harvard students, then they have to pay an exorbitant amount of money to eat. Something like $13 I think.</p>
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<p>There are usually two or three entrees every night that change per day, with a rotation of probably about 20 in total. There are other foods that appear every day, like things from the grill that you can get (in theory) cooked to order, such as hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken, crispy fish sandwiches, etc.</p>
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<p>Varies. With respect to freshman dorms, rooms in Grays and Apley are a lot better than rooms in your average dorm. The rooms everywhere generally aren’t spectacularly spacious but I don’t hear too much complaining about them.</p>
If Harvard financial aid weren’t so good, the meal plans would suck (you pay something insane like $15/meal… and the food is definitely not that good).</p>
<p>But if you ignore cost, the meal plans are great. The dining halls become social spaces where you can sit for hours and just catch up with friends. They also serve as meeting spaces for student groups, places for exam reviews, etc. None of this would be possible if there were a different system where not everyone was on the meal plan.</p>
<p>I never really used the kitchens, but I know there are a few in the yard (Matthews, Straus, any others?) and at least one in every house. It’s definitely fine for baking cookies every once in a while… I don’t know anyone who relied on it regularly (although if you really want to cook, you could check out [Dudley</a> Coop](<a href=“http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~dudcoop/]Dudley”>http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~dudcoop/))</p>
<p>With respect to your other questions, I wasn’t the biggest Annenberg fan, but I really loved the upperclass dining halls. It was a really casual place (typically very easy to sneak in a visiting friend), and I thought the daily “fallback” options were really very good (I’d make things like spinach salads with balsamic + olive oil, with a grilled chicken breast on top, or get a turkey burger from the grill and put bbq sauce + mushrooms on it). The entrees were usually decent as well.</p>
<p>I found that dorms at Harvard were far better than all of the on-campus living situations at the schools my friends went to, just because they were set up in suites. I spent the majority of my 4 years with my own bedroom and we always had a common room for hanging out/doing work/throwing parties.</p>
<p>I’d appreciate some opinions on dorms as well. Harvard’s own website, **************, Theu, and Princeton Review dorm ranking make it seem that Harvard has the one of the best dorms in the country, whereas a link to dorm room pictures that has been posted here on CC before shows extremely small rooms with bunk beds barely fitting in.</p>
<p>I did a super mondo quick fast tour of Harvard with my friend who goes there on Friday.</p>
<p>I’ll skip questions about which I know nothing.</p>
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Apparently, if you’re bringing in, say, prefrosh, they can get some sort of note and eat for free. In my case, my visit was sort of a surprise, so my friend just scanned her card twice to let me in. </p>
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None of the people I know at Harvard ate American food on a regular basis before going there, and they’ve all been quite happy with the selection there. There were definitely significant non-Western options. </p>
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I feel like this is really subjective and based in large part on the size and age of one’s bedroom at home. I’m used to living in old places that could do with some renovation and usually prefer such spaces to new ones. However, I’m also accustomed to living in a huge room.
Anyway, I had a quick peek at a freshman dorm and spent a little more time in my friend’s. They both definitely seemed to have enough space. My friend tried to stick to showing me more “typical” dorms, since we didn’t have much time.
She doesn’t have a bed, so… no idea what they’re like.</p>
<p>Any other opinions on dorms/meals are welcome! Thank you.</p>
<p>That seems unusually cramped. Canaday is known as being one of the worst freshman dorms (although it’s closest to food!). We certainly had more room in Wigglesworth where I lived.</p>
<p>Bilguun (et al.): With respect to that Canaday picture, you have to take into account the following: </p>
<p>That is a picture of a bedroom that’s part of a suite. When you go out the door with the playboy bunny, you are in a large common room shared by the suite members. The only stuff that happens in the bedrooms is sleeping and studying (and, well . . . some other private stuff sometimes); social life and relaxing mostly happens in the common room.</p>
<p>My kids had a friend in a Canaday suite just like that her freshman year. There were 5 kids, 4 bedrooms (so three of them had singles, and they rotated at midyear), and a really large common room. I spent a couple of hours in it visiting; it did not seem cramped at all.</p>
<p>Also, you don’t spend anywhere near as much time in your room at college as you spend at home in high school. Lots of socializing, studying, playing, chilling, daydreaming, etc. (even napping) happens elsewhere, including general common rooms in your dorm.</p>
<p>Finally, if you really are turned off by those pictures, where else are you going to go? My freshman dorm room, at a peer college, was a three-room, four-person suite with two bedrooms pretty much exactly that size, plus a nice-sized common room. It WAS a little squishy, and you had to work to get along with your roommates (especially your bedroommate), but basically fine. NO ONE ever said he wished he was anywhere else because the dorm rooms were like that. My sister’s freshman dorm room at yet another peer college was a one-room double about twice that size, which meant it was really cramped, too.</p>
<p>Thank you. I’m not really turned off; almost anything would work out for me. I was mainly asking because quite a few sources state that Harvard dorms are one of the best, which seemed incongruous with the pictures.</p>
<p>I think that it’s not space that puts them among the best. There are some very spacious private rooms – like in Mather and New Leverett. But mostly, it’s their beauty and character, living in the Yard, and the suite arrangements that make them some of the best.</p>
<p>Officially? No to the rice cooker + to (most) microwaves.</p>
<p>Unofficially - bring them, no one follows the rules. There may be a “fire inspection” at some point where you need to cover them with a sheet or something, but even if you forget you won’t get in trouble</p>
<p>Harvard Yard is magical. I have taken two kids to lots of schools and nothing (except UVA’s courtyard for select seniors) can compare. It is kinda cool that Harvard gives the best housing to the freshman. Of course, my daughter had to live it for a year and was ready to move to Leverett, but I miss the yard. I don’t think you can judge a college room my the dimensions, you have to consider the spirit of the place.</p>
<p>Common rooms attached to the Suites… How large are they aprox? Is it better to bring futons and chairs - or purchase them from the Goodwill / Habitate sale on move-in day?</p>
<p>Primamom- about 25% of freshman are housed outside of the yard in the “Union” dorms. (There is not a student union anymore sadly.) They are Hurlbut, Pennypacker, and Greenough, euphemistically referred to as being part of Crimson Yard–which is an imaginary yard that only exists in the mind of the freshman housing department.</p>
<p>The dorms are wildly different, 2015dad, so it’s best to see the suite before you start furnishing. My son was in Pennypacker, and at first he was a little bummed because it is not in the yard and it has no common rooms. However, after a while, he was happy there because he wasn’t in the fishbowl, otherwise known as Harvard Yard. His blocking group of 8 came from Pennypacker, became fierce Kirkland House members, and remained BFFs for the next 3 years.</p>