Hi! I’m an incoming freshman and I really want to stay in Southeast. I might do a triple with two other freshman at Smith. How far away is Smith from the main campus? Is it going to be bad walking to class in the cold? Are there enough freshman at Smith?
Smith is considered to be a little out of the way because it’s on the edge of campus. However, most of your classes will probably be a 10-20 minute walk. Yeah, it’ll be cold in the winter, but that’s the same for any dorm. The only downside of Smith is that it’s not ideally situated on the campus bus route, since once you get on, it has to first loop around the east side of campus before it starts heading towards where the majority of classes are. It also gets really packed on the buses in winter so sometimes it’s better (and faster) to just bear it and walk. Just make sure to layer up and check the weather in the morning before you set out.
Smith has a mixture of upperclassmen and freshmen. I think it’ll be fine.
It’s great that you know you prefer one neighborhood – the general advice is, if you know you want to be in one neighborhood over the other, than rank all the dorms in that neighborhood first, and then those in the other. Students who put Sellery and Witte first are more likely to get in those simply because of the number of students there whereast he mid-sized dorms are less predictable.
My UW kid lived in the apartments across the street from Smith as a sophomore. While it was really only about 2 blocks down Park, past Sellery, in the cold, he noticed those extra blocks. It is also a little bit uphill to get towards campus. Chad is more centrally located with a smaller dining hall on the ground floor.
Similar question…what are the most popular ‘freshman dorms’ in the southeast block…I am familiar with Sellery and Ogg…others? thank you
Chadbourne!