<p>Earlier I said I was probably going to live in Ellsworth Hall, which is a normal dorm, but then I heard that Margaret Amini Schol Hall was way better. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>schol halls are kinda secluded from the rest of the student population but they are really close to the campus. They are really cheap and you have to make food for the entire building every once in a while along with other chores. I live in the dorms now (oliver) and couldnt be happier with it. If u have the choice live in one of the big dorms they are tons of fun and have a real sense of community. Ellsworth, lewis, and Hash are all nice but they are like hotels which sounds nice but its really cool living with a bunch of people and sharing all of the stuff on the floor like bathrooms and common study areas.</p>
<p>My daughter is currently a KU junior and lives in Margaret Amini Scholarship Hall ("Maggie" or MASH!). You do have a "job" and the required one hour of phone duty a week. The job can be cooking one meal a week for 50 (lunch or dinner), doing dinner dishes (in dishwasher) three times a week, or vacuuming the halls,etc. Freshmen have the more "undesirable" jobs and they get better the longer you have lived in the hall. My daughter was drawn to them because they presented the opportunity to live around "like minded" people - hopefully students who cared about studying, not partying all the time. She had experienced some of the usual college living "problems" - problem roommates, etc., but overall is enjoying the experience. It is just another way to shrink the huge size of KU into a managable number. Only 550 students live in the schol halls, 11 halls of @ 50 students each. Each hall has a president, vice, etc. The schol hall system also has a governing body - the All Schol Hall Council. Each hall has social activities they do each year, and possibly others they add on a whim. They have "buddy halls" and eat a meal with the students of that hall weekly. There is a new girls' hall called Dennis Reiger. I hear it is very nice.
I think the schol halls are in a wonderful location. Right down the hill from the Union and a short walk to most classes.<br>
Some people are turned off by having a "job". If you are a meal "cooker",you MUST be there to cook, or 50 people go without eating and you are in a heap of trouble. Some people have said it would "cramp their style" to have to be back at a certain time if they were in the middle of studying, etc. I have heard that the remodeled Ellsworth is very nice. I think it is also the dorm that has practice rooms in the dorm, so if you play a musical instrument, you could practice right there instead of heading over to the music building.</p>