Hi! I can’t seem to find floor plans or anything on the website, so I was wondering which of these dorm room types is better? I noticed that you can’t pick which residence hall you want to live in, but I’ve heard that it’s easier to get your own bathroom with a quad instead of having to share a bathroom with the whole floor in a double/triple? I’d like to be able to share a bathroom with only like 3 other people instead of the whole floor lol
There aren’t floor plans, but you can take “virtual tours” of the different kinds of rooms here: https://living.sas.cornell.edu/virtual-tour.cfm
I didn’t live in a quad so I’m not sure about how many people you share a bathroom with, but even living in a double I wasn’t sharing the bathroom with the whole floor. There were multiple bathrooms with multiple showers per floor. If I remember correctly the bathroom directly across the hall from my room had four showers and was used by maybe about 20-25 girls. Finding a time to shower was never an issue. The numbers will vary based on dorm buildings I would imagine, but that certainly wasn’t the end of the world for me. If you’re really looking for more of a private, apartment-style kind of housing option, you might want to look into the townhouses.
@kbn2015 my frosh son lives in the Townhouse residences. It’s an All freshmen community and it is set up as a two story, two bedroom one split bath Townhouse that house four students in the unit . Downstairs is full kitchen complete with full size fridge, stove/oven, kitchen sink and cabinets. Looks into the combined dining and living room that is furnished with simple basic furniture. The things the guys furnished were the microwave, TV, PlayStation and dishes. The one bathroom is upstairs between the two bedrooms. The toilet is a separate closet and the main bath is huge with a small shower stall but a big sink counter area. He loves it there. The staff plan plenty of social stuff for their community. RAs and a resident faculty are onsite as are laundry facilities. Students visit each other often and there is a community/rec center there. My son has friends across the street in the dorms and they always hang out at his Townhouse because it’s roomy
@CALSmom thank u for the insight!! are the townhouses close to where all the classes are? im kind of afraid of ithaca winters haha
@Ranza123 thank you for the link and the response! can i ask which building you lived in? it’s not really showering times that are a concern to me it’s overall cleanliness
I lived in Balch! Yeah cleanliness is probably going to be an issue regardless of where you live. This is definitely a sweeping generalization, but college students as a whole are not that clean. But it was never so bad that it was unusable. And the dorms were cleaned on a daily basis, although of course it should be the responsibility of the students to keep things relatively clean.
@kbn2015 all freshmen housing are located in North campus which is a trek from campus but it’s mostly a slight downhill walk. Freshmen get free bus pass so in the winter if it’s too cold my son just hops on the bus. There is a stop right by the townhouses so it’s very convenient. So, no, the townhouses are the furthest north of all the freshman housing although it’s only across the street from the furthest dorm. My son is from So Cal and he survived his first winter just fine (the worst was 18-24" of snow in one day). But I think the coldest was 15* nothing sub zero
When I moved my son in last August and I remember walking from his townhouse to the ag quad (where Warren hall and Mann Library are located) and I would say it’s a half mile walk but it’s super pretty because you walk past beebe lake and triphammer falls
@CALSmom — that one day snowstorm was the worst in years. I cannot recall the specifics, but the first time in a very long time that the university closed early one day and remained closed the next day. The winter was long and cold two years ago, practically nonexistent last year, and perhaps closer to average this year. @Ranza123 can address this more accurately.
The slightly downhill walk is then slightly uphill on the return, but it is truly not much of an incline. Speaking as someone who lived on West Campus and climbed Libe Slope daily my freshman year. (Freshmen used to be housed on both West & North.)
I was curious about how far it was to Mann and was surprised that it is closer than the campus store! (I have a lousy sense of direction.) 8/10 of a mile from the townhouses but as you correctly pointed out, the townhouses are as far as one can live from the academic quads. Any architecture student living in Balch has the shortest walk to class!
My son lived in a ‘suite’ where seven shared one bathroom that included a shower, toilet stall and two sinks. It needs updating.
@CT1417 I’m pretty good with maps and directions so after convocation we planned a route to his classes from his townhouse and I found somewhat of a shortcut, the straightest line from A to B but it entailed going thru nature as opposed to the main walkways. I got a pretty good feel for how campus was laid out by the time I left.
Next year he’ll be in west campus which I’m happy about since it seems like a great living/learning environment
@CALSmom --and those West Campus dorms are fairly new, and offer interesting dining choices. Good luck to him!