<p>My daughter was not at all happy with the two stall/two shower gender neutral bathroom on a freshman coed floor at a well known east coast LAC. She immediately crossed it off her list, and from then on, at every college she toured, asked if there were single sex floors or at least single sex bathrooms. It was interesting when a couple of adcoms asked why this made her uncomfortable. She was able to respond that she wanted more privacy than what a coed bathroom offered.</p>
<p>shelly: Good for your daughter.</p>
<p>missypie: Was college and living at home not an option, i.e. no good schools nearby? Or does he really want this experience?</p>
<p>Is he choosing to be outside his comfort zone?</p>
<p>I totally understand what you're saying BTW.</p>
<p>He does want to go away (most days). I asked if he wanted to try to get a single, and he said no. (I think he's afraid of total isolation if he has a single.) </p>
<p>College is about the only situation most of us face (I won't count prison) where you're expected to have a room mate - in one small room. In adult life, most people whose room mates are not their romantic partners do not share an actual bedroom. (I actually did share a bedroom with another girl when I was student teaching, but we had a living room and kitchen, too.) Lots of colleges have apartments and everyone gets a bedroom type of suites for upperclassmen. Son just has to get through a couple of years. I truly don't know if he'll be able to make it with a room mate - I worry as much about the room mate as I do about him.</p>
<p>UCLA has some res-halls that have private bathrooms for just that triple or double room and these are available to first year students (although there's a chance they might not get it as a choice). </p>
<p>They have other res halls that have a bathroom shared between two triple/double rooms that's reasonably private - there's a toilet by itself behind a locked door and a shower by itself behind a locked door and then a common sink area.</p>
<p>They also have some res-halls with 5 singles with a a common single-gender bathroom that's pretty reasonable.</p>
<p>They also have the more traditional 'dorm' style dorms with the larger communal bathroom down the hall but they have one for males and another for females.</p>
<p>The price for the housing varies depending on the type of room configuration one ends up (dorm style is thousands less than a single for example) with so that's a consideration as well.</p>
<p>When touring colleges we found all different kinds of configurations, including the unisex ones and I do think it's an important item to some degree to many of the students.</p>
<p>What about an off-campus apt? I never lived in a dorm in college.</p>
<p>a lot of colleges require freshmen to live in the dorms.</p>
<p>A medical exemption could probably get him out of the dorm requirement.
Is the school in question close enough that he could come home on the weekends if he needed some time to himself?
How about doing an overnight in the dorm to see if he feels he can handle it?</p>