<p>Hello :)
I was just wondering which resident halls mainly consisted of first year students. Rutgers is such a big school and I wasn't sure. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>In general, any dorms with double rooms (i.e. not apartments or suites) are mostly freshmen. More specifically,
Livingston: Lynton Towers, Quads
Busch: Davidson, Barr (Engineering Only), Allen, Mattia (Male Engineering Only), Metzger, McCormick High Rise (SAS Honors)
College Ave and Cook/Douglass also have freshman dorms, I’m just not familiar enough with them.</p>
<p>Busch has the better freshmen dorms because every freshmen dorm on busch except Davidson has A/C. </p>
<p>Barr(co-ed) and Mattia(all male) are engineering dorms. Allen and Metzger are doubles with A/C. Davidson A,B,C are all doubles with no A/C.</p>
<p>College Ave dorms for freshmen don’t have A/C i think but they are the most requested because every freshmen wants to party on weekends, so they want this campus. Therefore, it is highly competitive. </p>
<p>Cook/Douglas i am not familiar but my friend lived in nicholas hall and it was small compared to busch and had no a/c.</p>
<p>Livingston Quad and towers are same thing like Davidson Hall, maybe a little smaller.</p>
<p>Since not many people seem to be familiar with Cook/Douglass. . . On Cook/Douglass some freshman dorms are Woodbury/Bunting-Cobb (which is a special-interest learning community that has some upperclassmen and is all girls), Nicholas, Lippincott, Katzenbach (again all girls with upperclassmen and part of Douglass residential college), and Old and New Gibbons (which feature both freshman and upperclassmen). Douglass is, contrary to popular belief, not just for girls. Of the dorms listed here, I’m not familiar with Old and New Gibbons. The others don’t have A/C. Nicholas has the best bathrooms. Lippincott and Katzenbach are mirror images of each other, basically. They’re all moderately sized, so you can still know all of the people on your floor and a lot of the people in your building.</p>
<p>Thank you all! One more thing. Given the option to live in McCormick (suites) should I? I’ve heard that you don’t get the same “first-year” experience living in suites or all honors housing. I know it all depends on involvement, but would living in McCormick make it any more difficult to get that first-year experience than living in a traditional dorm?</p>
<p>McCormick Suites are honors suites but when i was in a suite(sophmore year) i lived by the elevator and only knew the other two suites by the elevator i didn’t know the other people on my floor except the RA. </p>
<p>As for the experience, honors housing will house you with students with similar stats and its basically 6 people(2 ppl in a room) that share a bathroom, living room and 2 sinks. </p>
<p>As for what you should choose? You should decide what kind of environment you are looking for. Most of the students in honors will be the same classes where if you lived in regular dorms you will find some students in your generic classes. As for studying, i’d rather study with other honors students vs regular students because most freshmen will cram.</p>
<p>From my experience, </p>
<p>I lived in a dorm and still have close friends from the dorm today. It was probably an amazing year because of the thrill of college but you have to have self control with it cause you can fall behind.</p>
<p>In suites, me and more roommates were either in our suite or our friends where people would come over and we had privacy and room to hang out where a dorm room is small.</p>
<p>To be honest, i can not give you an answer where to choose but the social experience with other people living in the building was better in the dorm compared to the suite, but suite was the better living and education orientated housing. like you said, you make it whatever you can with involvement and also honors students do have fun from what i see. Only very few study constantly.</p>
<p>Regarding AC, keep in mind that it is not actually like a personal AC unit. From the start of school up until sometime in early October, the unit puts out cold air if you turn it on. From then until like late April/early May, it is heat. Then it reverts back to cold for the final like two or three weeks. So even if your dorm has AC, you are going to want to bring a fan because April can get very hot and the AC will still be putting out heat.</p>
<p>Regarding living in suites as a freshman, I personally feel like it can deprive you of getting to know more people. I live in a suite now, and I never see people in the other suites (except for the suites where my friends I made freshman year live). The suite itself is set up so that you don’t really have as much interaction with other people in the building. The door automatically closes, you have your own bathroom, and you have your own living area.</p>
<p>I feel like living in a traditional style dorm as a freshman is the way to go. The rooms are usually doubles, each floor typically has a nice big lounge where people hang out or do work, you can keep your door open, etc. Even having to walk to a common bathroom gives you a chance to meet more people you normally wouldn’t see (I know this sounds stupid, but honestly it’s true). It also feels a lot less awkward to try making new friends in a dorm than in suites. People usually have their door open in dorms, whereas the suites are always closed.</p>
<p>At the same time, I do think the chance to live with other people in an honors program is definitely something to consider. You typically have a lot of the same classes, so finding someone to study with or check homework is easy. There will be the occasional person who doesn’t like to socialize, but honestly most honors people at Rutgers aren’t like that. I lived in engineering honors housing my freshman year, which is the second floor of Barr hall. This was like the best of both worlds: my whole floor was honors engineering people, but the rest of the building was engineers of all different backgrounds.</p>
<p>Whether you choose McCormick or not, just remember to be social during the first few weeks and try to meet a lot of other people in your building, not just your roommate/suitemates. If you are proactive enough, you can get the same kind of experience that a dorm essentially forces you to have while being in the more secluded suite arrangement.</p>
<p>More random tidbits: McCormick isn’t entirely freshmen; there are also a lot of sophomore SAS honors people. If you are really worried about living in a suite, there are other SAS honors housing options. Brett Hall on college ave is also SAS honors and is a dorm.</p>