<p>Oops, I suck.</p>
<p>And EC definitely does NOT have elevators. That hike up to 5E or 5W gets reaaaaallllly long sometimes.... or so I'm told. (And it seemed really long to ME just getting up there to visit occasionally!)</p>
<p>WHAT! Senior House DEFINITELY has A/C. </p>
<p>Granted, it's really moist A/C that gets your sheets and stuff all damp if they're too close to the vents. But it's quite nice there in the summer.</p>
<p>l0lll, I'd prefer moist A/C to no A/C at all in the summer.</p>
<p>I am soooo happy it hasn't gotten <em>too</em> hot yet. Other years at this time, I'd have my fan out (> 75f is hot inside with room getting lot of sun ;))</p>
<p>no elevators? what do I do if I need to hoist something really heavy into a room on top level?.... :-(</p>
<p>You drag it or get people to help or come up with some clever way to get it up there. I'm sure you would not be the first person with this dilemma.... :)</p>
<p>
WHAT! Senior House DEFINITELY has A/C.</p>
<p>Granted, it's really moist A/C that gets your sheets and stuff all damp if they're too close to the vents. But it's quite nice there in the summer.
</p>
<p>Yeahhh, that's what they tell you. Then you get here and you realize that only the heating OR the A/C can work at one time (throughout the whole building) and they never switch it over until way after it's too late. Or if it's in that middle humid-but-not-really-hot phase they still don't turn on the A/C.</p>
<p>One should not come to SH expecting A/C, as one will likely never get it when desired.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, are the dorms flexible enough that freshmen can get singles if it's really preferable? For instance, if a freshman has a mild case of OCD and may start arranging dorms things at perfect right angles when stressed out? :p</p>
<p>Edit: said freshman is leaning towards BC as a first choice... :D</p>
<p>I'm sitting in an EC single, and my neighbor is also in a freshman single, so it is quite possible. Macgregor is all singles, so you will get one if you live there. It's a lottery for most other dorms, but you can luck into it.</p>
<p>If you can get a doctor's note saying you need a single, I think you'll get a single.</p>
<p>The number of singles varies by dorm, and since upperclassmen have already done rooming for next school year, some number of singles are already spoken for. As you can imagine, more freshmen want singles than there are singles available; in a dorm with few singles, it's a crapshoot to get one.</p>
<p>What Mollie said. If you live in BC, it will basically all depend on what floor you end up on. Some floors will have extra singles for freshmen, some won't. If you end up on a floor with an open single, you'll have to fight it out with anyone else who wants it. This is normally done through things like peaceful discussion or rock paper scissors tournaments.</p>
<p>Another OCD'ish question:
Air-conditioning (I love it): are window units permitted in Baker? What about those portable units with a hose that can funnel hot air outside? Is Simmons really like an oven in the summer?<br>
I've processed the institutional wisdom that dorm selection should be predicated on the people one will be living with, but I'm pretty easy-going where personalities are concerned, and think I could live in almost any dorm. So now I'm focusing on creature-comforts, and a/c ranks pretty high, Boston's heat and humidity not holding much appeal for me.</p>
<p>Window units are permitted in any dorm -- even if they're not allowed (which I've never heard that they are or aren't), room inspections only occur in the fall, when you wouldn't need a window AC unit anyway.</p>
<p>You really won't need air conditioning during the school year.</p>
<p>EDIT: I do understand the tendency to take superficial characteristics of dorms into account, but please try not to make them a major part of your decision-making process. Even if one dorm is prettier than another, or whatever, after a few weeks there, it's just going to look like home to you.</p>
<p>I mean, there's not One!Perfect!Dorm! for everybody, but the dorms are also not interchangeable in terms of communities.</p>
<p>It's all about the community. When I got to campus, I had absolutely no intention to join a fraternity or other independent living group. However, I had such a clear match with a particular house, that I did not hesitate to join, and I was extremely happy with that choice. </p>
<p>It is much, much, much more important to pick a group of people you want to live in very close proximity to, then to pick an extra 2.1 square feet of living space.</p>
<p>I had a question about Baker's quads--first off, what are they like? I understand that they're meant for four people...but is it just like a gigantic room with four beds? Do those four people share one bathroom?</p>
<p>same question as scooby_HPfan!</p>
<p>someone plz tell me what these doubles, triples and quads are like.......<br>
And do u get enough privacy to do some non-stop POWER-MATH and theorem proving etc in a D or T or Q.....
though I'm sure it'll be sooo much fun to work together on an engg project with one's room-mates!</p>
<p>
[quote]
I understand that they're meant for four people...but is it just like a gigantic room with four beds? Do those four people share one bathroom?
[/quote]
Hee, more than four people share bathrooms in Baker -- the bathrooms are for the whole floor. (I think there are several per floor, but they're not restricted to people from certain rooms.)</p>
<p>A quad would be a gigantic room with four beds and four desks. How the people in a quad choose to distribute the furniture and lay out the room is up to them -- the beds are bunkable, for example, but they don't have to be bunked. There are a few pictures of a Baker quad in Bryan's Baker</a> blog entry from last year.</p>
<p>The quad shown in Bryan's blog looks really bad. It looks more like a place for summer campers. Please tell me that Baker's rooms aren't all like that. Does MIT have any decent housing? And even if it does, why aren't there more decent dorms?</p>
<p>"Please tell me that Baker's rooms aren't all like that."</p>
<p>No, that's pretty much what they're like. My cousin lived in a Baker quad first year and liked it. It's like a lobby the room was so huge - had like 3 or 4 windows, too, overlooking the river. Most dorm rooms (singles) you have trouble fitting a couch but they had 2 couches in their room, and a TV (and four desks lined up against one wall), and rugs, and a couple of closets, if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>"Does MIT have any decent housing?"</p>
<p>None for you!</p>
<p>"And even if it does, why aren't there more decent dorms?"</p>
<p>Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.</p>
<p>What's defined as "decent" housing? </p>
<p>I guess I don't get snobbery about how aesthetically pleasing a dorm is. Like I said a few posts ago, your room and your dorm will just look like home after you've lived there for a few weeks. And if you want to make your room the super-aesthetic palace of cleanliness, you're totally welcome to do that -- most people just don't care enough. They'd rather be in dorms with people they care about than a dead antiseptic hospital ward of a dorm.</p>