<p>Let me preface this with the reminder that Son has Asperger's Syndrome. He has always had a hard time using public restrooms. At one of his favorite schools, the only option in the dorms is community restrooms. I can really see him not choosing that school based on the rest room situation alone.</p>
<p>If your student has or had similar issues (or other quirky things like that), I'd love to hear your story.</p>
<p>My niece absolutely chose her school for the bathrooms! Loyola of Maryland is widely known for having some of the nicest dorms in the country, and she couldn't bear the thought of a communal shower. Fast forward two years and she transferred to our state's flagship, lived in a cinder block dorm room with communal bathrooms down the hall!</p>
<p>Responding so I can subscribe to this thread. I think it's as valid a reason as wanting to be in a warm climate (for instance). The bathroom is a big enough aspect of everybody's lives, I think it deserves consideration.</p>
<p>I've heard much worse reasons for picking or rejecting a school.</p>
<p>If his Asperger's manifests itself in a way that there is legitimate trauma attached to the element of bathroom facilities, he could get an appropriate authority (the person who diagnosed him perhaps?) to write a letter to the school's Disabled Student Services office, requesting an ADA accommodation for a private bathroom. There are probably private-bath facilities at the school; they just may not ordinarily be available to entering students.</p>
<p>One of my daughters room mates has Aspergers- but the bathrooms at their school, while shared ( and unisex) were not like what you think of as public bathrooms.</p>
<p>But I agree that it should be part of his accommodation if it is really an issue & let the colleges know because some colleges will work with you & better to find out now which ones</p>
<p>not exactly the same situation, but a similar one. we were looking at dorms. i thought D would like the dorm with four bedrooms that share a living area and two bathrooms. i was quite surprised when she said "why would anyone want that!??!" i guess in her mind college dorm life means sharing a ROOM with someone else and she likes that idea. i thought the idea of single bedrooms was great, giving each kid a quiet place to study or sleep etc.</p>
<p>who knew!??!</p>
<p>OMG!, I never thought about this, but my D will NOT use a public bathroom EVER! It never occurred to me that this would be a problem. I'm going to have to discuss this with her.</p>
<p>The nice thing about public bathrooms is someone else cleans them. I'm not sure anyone cleans the bathroom my son and his roommate share. :(</p>
<p>Mike- in dorms where they have single rooms/doubles, there is a common area, where students hang out- I haven't seen the same sort of space in dorms where there are living suites.</p>
<p>( my daughter had a single room- for three years in a small college that mostly had divided doubles and singles. Senior year she and a friend shared a college townhouse, with bedrooms on lower floor ( and one bath) living space inc kitchen ( and another bathroom) on top floor.
Which is double the bathrooms that she grew up with.
They each claimed a bathroom- which worked well.</p>
<p>My daughter is guilty as charged. she picked her school for the dorms, and yes bathrooms. All dorms are either suites or apartments and were built in the last 4-5 years.
She is the youngest of 4 and got to see the living quarters of her older sisters and decided it was not for her. she likes privacy.</p>
<p>Mike- in dorms where they have single rooms/doubles, there is a common area, where students hang out- I haven't seen the same sort of space in dorms where there are living suites.</p>
<p>( my daughter had a single room- for three years in a small college that mostly had divided doubles and singles. Senior year she and a friend shared a college townhouse, with bedrooms on lower floor ( and one bath) living space inc kitchen ( and another bathroom) on top floor.
Which is double the bathrooms that she grew up with.
They each claimed a bathroom- which worked well.</p>
<p>Mike- in dorms where they have single rooms/doubles, there is a common area, where students hang out- I haven't seen the same sort of space in dorms where there are living suites.</p>
<p>( my daughter had a single room- for three years in a small college that mostly had divided doubles and singles. Senior year she and a friend shared a college townhouse, with bedrooms on lower floor ( and one bath) living space inc kitchen ( and another bathroom) on top floor.
Which is double the bathrooms that she grew up with.
They each claimed a bathroom- which worked well.</p>
<p>Queen's Mom, the school at issue is a small LAC. There is a grand total of four dorms in which all underclasspersons live...all are set up the same way, all have communal bathrooms (as in one for the whole floor). There are no other choices. Son kept thinking that there must be other options but I've comfirmed with the school that that's it. I'm pretty sure that if we had a letter from a psychologist, we could get him into some other living arrangements, but then he'd be segregated from the other students, which would be bad for him.</p>
<p>My S greatly prefers the communal bathroom down the hall (cleaned by staff) to an in-suite bathroom shared by 4 guys (clean it yourself--which means it never gets cleaned). </p>
<p>One school my HS senior D is considering has old dorms with a very weird bathroom situation: There are four fairly large bedrooms with 2 girls in each. In the center--with the entrance OUTSIDE on a balcony (I mean out-of-doors, and they do have winter there--though fairly mild in the mid-south) --is a single bathroom--one sink, one toilet, one shower for those 8 girls. Now my D comes from a family of 9 and is used to sharing bathrooms--but the picture I have of 8 college girls sharing this one little bathroom is not a pretty one. And going outside to enter the bathroom? Who designed that setup? It is possible that D will turn down a full tuition scholarship based on "yucky dorms."</p>
<p>In the old days I lived in dorms with hallway bathrooms and one year in a suite with a bathroom shared by 4 girls. Though the in-suite bathroom was cleaned by staff, I preferred the down-the-hall bathrooms--actually more availability and privacy there than in the suite.</p>
<p>I am amazed at the terrible dorms I have seen in the last year. In the 70s, I lived in a huge, high rise dorm. We had I guess what were community bathrooms, shared by 12 girls in a suite. My dorm room back then was so much nicer and larger than most of the dorm rooms I am seeing now. I'm just stunned at the cinderblock walls, tiny dressers, tiny closets, tiny rooms and the general ugliness of the whole set up.</p>
<p>You should talk to housing at any school your DS is interested in. Many have several rooms with private baths for kids with disabilities.</p>
<p>
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my D will NOT use a public bathroom EVER!
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It's going to be a mighty uncomfortable 4 years!</p>
<p>S2 lives in a dorm built in 1962. His room is 11x14 complete with cinderblock walls. He is in a suite, four rooms w/ two guys in each room. The eight guys share one bathroom (one toilet, sink, shower). It is cleaned by the univ. staff. He had originally wanted a dorm w/ hall style bathroom and was disappointed to end up in a suite but has gotten over it and done fine. </p>
<p>Hopefully, if there is no special accomadations available, your S will quickly see that it's not that big of a deal. Would he be open to a special room or would that just make it hard to explain to friends why he has it?</p>
<p>
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Hopefully, if there is no special accomadations available, your S will quickly see that it's not that big of a deal.
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</p>
<p>If he's avoided public restrooms his whole life, I don't think others saying "It's no big deal" is going to be helpful. Do you have any quirks or phobias that you know in your brain are not rational, but you have them anyway? I hate to have my teeth cleaned - like fingernails on a chalkboard, only inside my body! Having my husband say, "It's no big deal" does not endear me to the dentist - it just makes me feel hostile to both my husband and the dentist!</p>