Getting a single

As a gap year student, how likely am I to get a single in North or Max P (my top choices)?

@chicagokid2021 Max P–almost no chance at all. There are quite a limited amount of single rooms but those are taken by upper classmen in the housing lottery before first years even get a room. Also, Max doesn’t have straight up singles, but suites with 2 rooms connected and a semi-private bathroom.
North–low, since if I’m understanding correctly you put your deposit in late. Many of the singles are taken during house lottery for the upperclassmen and will also be taken by people with quicker deposits.
If you indicate you really want a single, my bet is that you’ll probably end up in I-house.

I actually should have priority, as I submitted my deposit a year before most other people.

Are my chances of a single in North still unlikely?

Are the singles on a separate floor than the doubles?

What is so bad about I-house?

I lived in a single in I-House during my first year of grad school. It’s OK (my single in college was much bigger so I had been a bit spoiled). Beautiful large lobby area and each college house has its own lounge. The biggest disadvantage would be that your house table is in Cathey which is several blocks to the west and across the Midway. I-House is one of the farthest res. halls from the dining facilities. Also, the “community bathrooms” were pretty awful when I lived there (hopefully they have been updated). Still, you are guaranteed a single and it’s a respectable sized dorm (430 residents, five houses) so lots of opportunity to meet new people. The dining hall issue might be less of a problem once you get used to it and if you end up in an awesome house with a close-knit community that might more than compensate.

@chicagokid2021 From what I’ve heard from gap year students from previous years, you do get first choice…of the First Years. The upperclassmen have already had their housing lottery, and they tend to take the best rooms, and that would include the singles in residence halls like North, where most rooms are doubles. If a single is really important to you, you might want to consider BJ or Snell.

There are some singles left in North. Not a lot, but there are some. As a gap year student with priority over everyone else you have a good chance of getting one of them.

@NorthLeftCoast most rooms in North are not doubles. They built a lot more singles into North. This is a pretty accurate floorplan, though lounge layout varies a lot by house: http://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/housing/docs/Campus_North_1.pdf

So is it worth it having a single in I-House vs a double in Max P.

@Cu123 Depends on how much you want a single

I-House has singles, Max has mostly doubles
I-House has communal bathrooms, Max has suites that share a bathroom
I-House is close to the 6 and restaurants, Max is close to the quad
I-House eats in South (15 min walk), Max eats in Bartlett (at most a 5 minute walk)
I-House is a big gothic building, Max is architecturally [rather unique](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Max_Palevsky_Residential_Commons%2C_University_of_Chicago.jpg)

I am understanding there are some singles left in North after room draw? Are there any apartments left?
ED1 admit so accepted right away. Chances for single? How good have the roommate matches been? May be thinking it is good as a freshman to have a roommate?

@JuliaEK:
Yes
No
Low
The average roommate pair are not friends but coexist peacefully in mutual indifference. Then the rest are split evenly between roommates who do not get along and roommates who ended up close.
In my opinion the “college experience” is farcical and highly overrated but colleges trying to save money by forcing everyone to have roommates seem to have very effective propaganda departments. I don’t think there’s any real downsides to getting a single but plenty of them for getting a double.

There’s nothing like living in a 10x12’ room with someone to get you to dislike them. ~X(

@JuliaEK to correct myself - your chances of getting a single in North are probably low, but your chances of getting a single anywhere is near 100%.

Note that Snitchcock doesn’t have as many singles as people make it out to have. Snell is the size of the average BJ or I-House house, but there’s only one Snell and six houses in BJ and I-House. There are probably more singles for first years in North than there are in Snell.

I lost my spreadsheet with the exact room distribution of BJ, but I think about 30-40% of spots open to first years are doubles on average. So getting a single in BJ is also a bit harder than it appears, and a secret backdoor into BJ is saying that you really want BJ, but you’re okay with ending up with a double.

I-House is all singles and has plenty of space, though. Everyone who is adamant about getting a single will likely get one but there is a “risk” of ending up in I-House. Though IMO first year’s fears of I-House are pretty unfounded.

@HydeSnark - Sounds about right to me as a current BJ resident. Since BJ has way more upperclassmen than most dorms and those students prefer singles, the doubles usually pretty much exclusively go to first years. There are so few of them though that probably 70%+ of first years get singles.

@JuliaEK - roomates are overrated. If you want to socialize, you can always go to the lounge, it really isn’t hard at all. The whole point of O-Week is to force you to make friends with people in your house, and it’s very good at what it does.

@phoenix1616 hi neighbor