<p>"I wonder what is the oldest currently used dorm age, and where? Oxford?"</p>
<p>Probably. The oldest dorm at Harvard was built in 1720, and I'm pretty sure that's the oldest student housing in the country.</p>
<p>"When you go on tours they always show you the NICEST dorms they have"</p>
<p>I don't know what they're doing nowadays, but when I gave tours ~7 years ago, you saw middle-of-the-pack dorms on the summer tours of Harvard. One year, it was a 3-room quad in Holworthy, and one year it was a two-room double in Thayer. So you didn't get to see the gigantic rooms of Grays, Matthews, etc.</p>
<p>Yeah, but I mean they definitely don't show you the worst ones. And at a lot of colleges, it can vary pretty greatly. It just seems like I've heard/seen tour dorms being so great, but then I know someone who's a freshmen there and their dorm definitely doesn't look like that. I just mean you have to be cautious about basing your opinion of the dorms on the tour...they probably aren't showing the worst ones, which do tend to be the freshmen ones. </p>
<p>Some schools don't have much variation in their dorms. George Mason in Va isn't too old and all the dorms are basically exactly the same. What you see is what you get. But at most older schools that isn't the case at all.</p>
<p>Guys, by shared bathroom down the hallway, does that mean a bothroom with couple of toilets, and few showers like the one in the air ports or the rest areas?? what does the bathroom shared by the suites residents mean? is it one or two bathroom like the one you would have in the house where there is a toilet and a shower in the same place??</p>
<p>does anyone know the dorms of stanford, cornell?</p>
<p>You could see any of the varieties you mention. The 'hall' ones I've seen usuallly have a few toilet stalls and a couple of shower stalls and a few sinks. I think most places are segregated by gender but some are unisex - including some at Stanford. </p>
<p>If you're really interested, go to the website of the college and check out the configurations. Also, you could post on Stanford's and Cornell's CC areas and ask current students the details and their opinions.</p>
<p>It's easy to get a room or suite with a private bathroom at the University of Chicago. As to the cleaning issue, girls here generally clean their rooms and bathrooms weekly. I've used guys' bathrooms, and most were fine.</p>
<p>Key word: most! There is one in particular that stands out in my mind. Apparently it was one guy's turn to clean, and since he refused to do it they decided to just wait it out. I'm not sure exactly what ended up happening; needless to say, I haven't been back.</p>
<p>We were showed a traditional dorm room during our tour at Wash U, so we were pleasantly surprised when we moved in S1 to a new and immaculate suite. The common rooms are cleaned twice a week ( that includes the bathrooms in the suites) The university is gutting down the older dorms and building new ones that the residence hall we saw during the tour (S1 is now a junior) is now one of the two newest ones. There is another one being built and if I am not mistaken there is now only one traditional dorm.
DS is really happy with living in the dorms that he did not move to the newer lofts off campus when it was offered to upperclassmen last summer. His reasons- 1)he likes clean bathrooms, 2) vacuumed living rooms,3) he does not cook anyway, and 4) it is very convenient because his meetings sometimes last up to past 10 pm.</p>
<p>Peace - My son, a freshman at Cornell, is living in one of the older, traditional dorms with a common single-sex bathroom along the center hallway. Bathrooms are ok - a few sinks, private stall toilets, and private stall showers (although as his Mom I used the women's room while visiting, so I can't be sure that the men's room is exactly the same). I understand that the newer dorms are arranged by suites, so that a few bedrooms share a bathroom. In either case, bathrooms are professionally cleaned daily (except weekends).</p>
<p>At Cornell, there is a good supply of single rooms for freshmen - good for studying, sleeping and privacy. But with community bathrooms, it is much easier to meet people. This arrangement offers the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>Pepperdine has nice dorms, 4 doubles rooms to a suite for freshmen The suite has a bathroom with 2 sinks, 2 toilets & 2 showers. A common room is cental in the suite. Daily maid service for common areas including the bathroom. Laundry facilities and larger common room with fireplace and tv in each "hall" (building). Many of the rooms have beautiful views of Malibu and the ocean, or on the other side, the Malibu Hills. My D has partial ocean and partial hills. They also have towers and apts. for soph, juniors and seniors. Towers are 2 doubles joined by one bathroom. and a/c. Apts have 2 bedrooms 2 beds in each with bathroom, kitchen area and living rm area.
The only complaint is maintenance is slow to nil for broken things like shade, closets etc. They were ranked #1 dorms last year.</p>
<p>You people crack me up. I've been camping with Boy Scouts for seven years. Until you've seen the results of 30 boys sharing a single Forest Service outhouse in 15-degree weather, you've never seen a bad bathroom. Boo hoo -- you have to share a big bathroom with a bunch of peers. Get a grip. Sheesh.</p>
<p>Re living arrangements: I always liked UCI's Mesa Court and Middle Earth dorms. They look more like apartment buildings than barracks. Each dorm has a large central living room, with two or three 2-story spokes coming off it. Each "spoke" is called a suite, and has a living room with a few rooms attached, and a single bathroom. Most major social activities are in the large living room, but each suite has a smaller hanging-out spot. It's hard to believe that Middle Earth is now more than 30 years old...</p>
<p>There's the University of Virginia, for example, where the most prestigious rooms (reserved for student leaders) are tiny little places that open onto the Lawn and have tours trooping by all the time, with folks peering in the windows. To get to the bathroom, one goes outside, down some stairs, and around a building. If you ever visit, you'll see students in bathrobes carrying buckets containing their shampoo and toothpaste, scurrying about outside in even the coldest weather. And they love it!</p>
<p>They don't have heat either I don't think! But it's considered a privilege to live on the lawn. Someone was getting married on the lawn the last time I was there.</p>
<p>Our son is in a dorm where the males on his hall share a communal bathroom. The students' schedules are so varied that it is pretty unusual to run into anyone else in the bathroom. The housekeeping staff does a good job of keeping the bethrooms under control. A definite plus, to my way of thinking, and just one more thing not to hassle about with one's room mates!</p>
<p>The bathrooms were all locked so the kids needed keys to enter for the first few weeks. Eventually, the guys decided to do without the locks, but the girls preferred the security of locked hall doors on their bathroom</p>
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There's the University of Virginia, for example, where the most prestigious rooms (reserved for student leaders) are tiny little places that open onto the Lawn and have tours trooping by all the time, with folks peering in the windows.
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<p>Yeah, but you get to say you lived in rooms design by the third president of the United States. Pretty cool!:)</p>
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I wonder what is the oldest currently used dorm age, and where? Oxford?
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Contrary to popular belief, Oxford isn't even the oldest university in Europe (that's Bologna in Italy), never mind the world. In any case I don't think many, if any, of the very first univeristy buldings still exist. I think there are bits of University College from around 1300 but I don't know if any students actually live in them. My college accommodation was actually built in 1996 but it's been artificially aged on the outside so it blends in with the other buildings and appears to be old. Some of the older colleges have absolutely palatial rooms with their own sitting rooms and kitchens. I think that in the past students had to accommodate their own servants and stuff. We do have cleaners and lots of people have their own bathroom (I don't). Pretty much all rooms are single (that is normal everywhere in the UK and people are HORRIFIED to find out that US students have to share rooms). Many students at sometime "live out" in private rented accommodation, usually in their second year. This is a lot more expensive because you have to pay for the vacations as well (unless you can sub-let your room for this time).</p>
<p>When I read posts about "shared bathrooms" I thought people meant the modern issue of coed communal bathrooms, like Williams, Haverford, etc. This is something my daughter is NOT interested in. Her first choice school wasn't one of those, though I'm sure it would not have been a "deal breaker" for her.
Better than the prospect of first year students making their friends through communal bathrooms is sharing meals with them. Residential colleges dining facilities in their colleges seem better for that!</p>