I’m looking at dorms for next year and am deciding between the 4 and 8 person suites. The perk of the eight person suite is that your bathroom is cleaned for you, but it’s still 8 people to one bathroom… From my research I like the general idea of the high rises (Craig, Hojo, Eringhaus), as the social scene is supposed to be better, but am leaning to the 4 person suite-style dorms (Koury, Hardin, Horton, Craig North). Can someone shed some light on the bathroom situation in the 8 person suite (whether the sheer number is overwhelming), the social setting for the smaller dorms, and the unseen differences between the high rises and the smaller dorms?
I lived in Craige during my freshman year. The bathroom situation wasn’t too bad with 7 other people. We all used the bathroom/shower at different times. I was basically able to shower whenever and use the bathroom whenever, however, we kept our door unlocked if the suitemates needed to wash their hands/shower. We put up a curtain at the toilet area to have some privacy when we were on the toilet. It’s really handy to have people come in, clean, and replace the toilet paper for you because it’s not a worry on who’s going to replace the toilet paper or if it’s clean during finals week.
I had friends who lived in Koury (honors Dorm), Hardin (all girls), Horton, and Craige North. They didn’t really like having to clean the bathroom and replace the toilet paper themselves. Some of their suitemates were a little messy and didn’t want to clean, so there was kind of a passive aggressive attitude between suitemates. It really depends on your suitemates for the 4-person suite style because they’re the ones who are also going to help maintain the upkeep of your bathroom instead of housekeeping.
The social setting for the 4 person suite-style dorms is pretty quiet, in my opinion. That doesn’t mean the social scene won’t be great for you because you could always go to other dorms where your friends live (Chances are, they probably won’t be living in the same dorm as you unless you live in Hojo or something). In the end, it really just depends on what you want from your dorm experience.