<p>I will be attending SPS next fall and was wondering if someone could give me insight about what the dorms are like? ----Which dorms do most people want to be in/which are considered the nicest?
-Which are considered the worst to be in?
-Which are the biggest?
-Which are the smallest?
-Personal opinions about the different dorms.
and all other info about the dorms that would be relevant! thanks :)</p>
<p>As a new student, you will be placed in a “house”, the SPS vernacular for dorm. You’ll find out your placement in early August. Houses vary a lot, and even the rooms within a house can have a wide range of options. Most houses hold between 30-40 students. Opinions vary on which is the best to live in based on heads of house and other faculty associated with each house in a particular year, location, and the prefects and other students residing in the house that year. Since you don’t get to pick your house, its probably best to await your placement in August and then seek opinions. Congrats on SPS!</p>
<p>SPS has some nice dorms! When I visited I went into a really nice dorm that looking cozy, clean, modern, and just nice all around.</p>
<p>I’m also going to attend sps as a third former and was doing some research about the same topic and found this page really helpful <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/518167-st-paul-s-school-concord-nh-p205.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/518167-st-paul-s-school-concord-nh-p205.html</a> x</p>
<p>@creative1 thank you! do you know if most current students tend to request people? @boardingschoolz thank you, the page is really helpful!!</p>
<p>@boarding17school - Tend to request people? Like as roommates? </p>
<p>@creative1 yeah, as roommates</p>
<p>@boarding17school All new students will live with other new students or in a single room. Returning students can live with a roommate of their choosing (or 2 as there are a few triples on campus) or they can choose a single. </p>
<p>@creative1 does making all new students room with each other create a divide between new/returning students? how do they help to introduce new students etc?</p>
<p>Oh I can answer that. </p>
<p>It’s not like it creates a “divide” per say, but it just gives the newbies a quick friend group to adjust with, because everyone else will be looking for one too. It’s just a matter of time before you forge your own group of friends you’re comfortable with, be it with the new or the returning. </p>
<p>One of the things I like about SPS is vertical housing, where each house has students from all 4 forms. The school makes an effort to mix old and new students together by putting their rooms next to one another. Each dorm has prefects who are students in 6th form (seniors) that serve as student leaders in the dorm. Each new student has a “big” brother or sister, who is an upperformer, usually in the same dorm who will help the new student adjust, answer questions, etc. Advisor meetings and meals are 5-6 students of mixed forms so you get to know that small group well. Seated meals have you sitting with different students every 3 weeks or so, so another opportunity to meet more students. I highly encourage you to join several clubs and activities your first year as its a good way to meet students with similar interests. SPS is a small school at around 540 students. Given the small nature and the fact that around 150 kids are new each year, old students enjoy meeting new students and there is a lot of interaction among grade levels. </p>
<p>@mrnephew do you know how many new people they put roughly in each dorm? thanks so much for the info @mrnephew and @creative1</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but it does have about 30 students living in each dorm. They wouldn’t make an entire new students’ dorm, but after that, I doubt there’s any correlation. </p>
<p>EDIT: So I guess there IS a correlation. @creative1 knows more about SPS than I do. :)</p>
<p>Typically, 8-14 new students per dorm.</p>
<p>Isn’t Kehaya the biggest/newest dorm? It’s also the farthest away from the school buildings/chapels though…</p>
<p>I just did the “Housing Questionnaire” on the SPS website, and there is a slot where you can request a roommate.</p>
<p>Are you an incoming 3rd Former? (I am!)</p>
<p>Kehaya is very cushy but I think most of the new 3rd formers there have triples. Also, its physical layout is less conducive to togetherness than a lot of other dorms. So even Kehaya has tradeoffs. </p>
<p>My daughter was placed in a dorm that’s considered “bad” and had a miniscule room her first year, but she loved her roommate and other dormmates and had a terrific year.</p>
<p>You’ll start hearing about dorm assignments in late July/early August.</p>
Hi - I am currently a st. paul’s student - if any one of you (hopefully soon) incoming students want to know about the dorms, I would be happy to answer any questions!
Hi @paisleyprint, can you share anything about the dorms? Thanks for being helpful! 
there are 18 dorms at sps - 9 girls and 9 boys dorms. all dorms at sps are vertical- they combine students of all ages, but only of one gender.
The dining hall is located in a building called coit, but always referred to as the upper (in the upper, there is also a lower, middle, and upper dining room all used for different occasions). in coit, there are also 3 dorms - (coit) north, (coit) wing, and (coit) center. north is a boy’s dorm, while the other two are girls dorms. since these dorms are located in the same building as the dining hall, they are very convenient in the cold winter months, as food is only seconds away- however they ae the farthest dorms from the academic buildings (Schoolhouse and lindsay) - they are approximately a 10 minute walk away. these dorms have a very gothic period look and feel to them, and are have a lot of flights - but an upside to this is that if you are an upperformer in one of these dorms, your room can stretch over 3 stories! sometimes, after check-in on saturdays (11-12 at night depending on what form you’re in), these dorms come together in the upper common room, for a supervised “hang-out”, which is cool because you can still see your friends from other dorms in the upper, and the upper is one of three locations where food delveries can be made on campus. the upper is also quite near the hockey rink.
the kitt’s are also similar to the upper these three dorms are all housed in the same building, and include two girls dorms (kitt 2 and kitt 3) and one boys dorm (kitt 1). like the upper, they share a laundry room. these dorms are some of the smaller dorms on campus - they generally house around 20 students each, providing a more homey and cosy feel. these were built in the 50’s but have been renovated recently, and these benefit from being closer to the academic buildings than coit, probably the closest dorms to the hockey rink, and also very close to the library.
if you continue walking down from the upper towards the academic buildings, you would see nash, which is a very nice boys dorm, and is right next to kitt - very close to the library. its rooms are great and spacious - it also has a ping pong table in its common room, like a few other boys dorms.
you would then pass by the chapel, and see four separate dorms -armor, middle, foster, and conover twenty (con). armor and foster are boys dorms, while con and middle are girls dorms. con is on the other side of the road (rectory road), right next to the rectory, on the same side as the academic buildings - and is in fact the closest dorm to the academic buildings. con used to be two dorms - conover and twenty- it has a lot of singles, but still a lot of spacious doubles. it is more horizontally spread out than some other more house-like dorms, such as middle - this is probably because most of the rooms are on the sqme floor, and it has two hallways, both leading into the common room. it has huge common areas and is currently the largest dorm on campus. middle is near armor and foster, and only has a couple of singles - it usually has two triples, and a lot of doubles, including adjoining singles set up like doubles, which are slightly similar to the singles of con. armor is a large boys dorm as it used to be the infirmary, so it has a huge common room and spacious rooms. it is one of the largest boys dorms on campus and houses a lot of people. foster is one of the spots where you can pick up food on campus, and is also a large dorm. it only has a few doubles, like most boys dorms but has a lot of adjoining singles. these dorms are conveniently located as they are near the school buildings and also near chapel, which is held four times a week in the mornings.
behind the rectory, is the quad area. the quad is a very central location - it is equidistant from everythinf - chapel, the post office, tuck (the grill-like cafe, which is also on the other side of the rectory), the upper, etc. Quad dorms are all brick - there are four quad dorms - simpson, manville, brewster, and ford. brewster and ford are girl’s dorms while the other two are boy’s. quad dorms are known for having lots of singles, but most of the rooms in the girls dorms are still doubles and there are still enough doubles in the boys dorms as well. they have a homey and hearthy feel to them. quad dorms are nearer to the afc than the dorms that were previously listed as well, and you can pick up food deliveries at the afc (athletic & fitness center)
just outside the quad is warren, which is a boys dorm and the dorm nearest to the afc. it is also really near the practice fields, therefore a very desirable spot for athletes.
across the pond from the upper, moving away from the academic buildings are kehaya and drury. these are the closest dorms to the boat docks, and are relatively new. they sit on drury hill. kehaya, the newest girls dorm, is known for its spacious room and immense modern windows. nearly all of the rooms are lofted, and there are always quite a few triples in kehaya. however, it is nearly as far away to the schoolhouse as the upper - although it is about a 3 minute walk from the upper and the quad.
dorm life is a really big element of sps. there are dorm meetings once a wekk, and its really neat to get to know all the upperformers in your dorm, and they can help you with lots of things and often provide the best advice. you can have visitors of the same gender over anytime in your dorm before check, but you can only intervisit from 7:30-9:00 pm on every day except saturday (8-11:00 pm). every dorm has its own kitchen and laundry room (except for the kitts and coits). you can decorate your room however you want as long as it agrees with the fire code, and a lot of doubles have space to fit a couch, so do a lot of singles.
let me know if you have any more questions, or more specific questions about dorm life in general
@paisleyprint What dimensions(like in ft x ft) are the typical rooms?