Housing and Roommates

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Minnesota
1

So I took a look at the housing application today and it brought up a couple of questions for me.

  1. There is a form where it says you can put the student ID of someone you want to be room mates with. At some other schools I’ve looked at they say that they have some kind of service where you can put interests etc… and find similar people looking for roommates, is there something official or non-official like this for UMN?
  1. What are the best residence halls/apartments to stay in?
2
  1. Try checking out the Class of ____ UMN Facebook group. From what I've seen on my class' group page a lot of people write short biographies about themselves; it usually includes their interests/hobbies/personality description/etc.
  2. This depends on what kind of person you are and what type of environment you prefer. Here's a very general spiel on the dorms/apartments.

17th

  • has the best food out of all the dining halls
  • close to dinkytown
  • lots of athletes and people planning on going greek live there

Bailey Hall

  • it’s in St. Paul so unless you will be having a lot of classes there it is a tad inconvenient
  • apparently the dining hall is a hidden gem (from what I’ve heard)

Centennial Hall

  • one of the quieter dorms in Superblock
  • lots of singles (rooms)
  • not an all-freshman dorm
  • dining hall is pretty aesthetic but the food is so mehhhh
  • has this lounge underground called the Gopher Hole?? it’s actually really cool and a chill place to hang out with friends or study

Comstock

  • close to Coffman so that’s nice
  • I really like the food there
  • not all freshman (I believe)

Frontier

  • toned down version of T-hall
  • houses CSE Taylor House
  • no dining hall (residents usually eat at Centennial, there’s a tunnel so it’s not too bad)

Territorial

  • known as the party dorm
  • wine wednesdays (a friend of mine who lives there said that this was a thing on her floor)
  • also has no dining hall (Centen it is)

Middlebrook

  • if you live here you’ll develop a love/hate relationship with Washington bridge
  • most residents are art, honors, or international students
  • no communal bathrooms! you have semi-private bathrooms wooo
  • lounge on each floor
  • generally the quietest of all the dorms
  • decent dining hall

Pioneer

  • used to not have an AC but they’re renovating it this year
  • dining hall is not good

Sanford

  • super close to Dinkytown
  • bit far from most class buildings
  • personally I am a fan of the dining hall food
3

Mentioned this on another thread as well:

Pioneer will be closed for 2017-18 and 2018-19 while they renovate it - you’ll notice that it’s not listed on the Housing Application. They are putting a LOT of dough into that project so the class of 2023 should be very happy about living there :slight_smile: Pretty sure I heard from our tour guide during a recent res. hall tour that Comstock was going all freshman as a result. One other might be as well (they have to find space for 700+ freshman as a result of closing Pioneer).

Those choosing the Superblock will want to make note that Pioneer had the other dining facility. Therefore, it’ll be down to one, Centennial. However, everyone is free to eat at any of the dining facilities.

Also, we took one of the UMN busses from East bank to Carlson and it took about 2 minutes to wait for a bus and another five (at most) to get to the West Bank. Those living in Middlebrook don’t have to walk over the Washington Ave. Bridge if they don’t want to, although it’s great exercise! There’s also the light rail, although my impression was that the bus was more frequent. If my D attends UMN she would be joining the Honors Residence LLC and is very much looking forward to a quiet dorm anyway, so for her it’s Middlebrook hands-down. She knows she can always get out to the parties and social activities, but she also needs the quiet for studying and sleeping.

Edit to add: Great list, @stormypanda!

4

@maoxigren, the list of priorities for room selection go as follows: 1) LLC (if specified), 2) mutual room-mate request, 3) building/room type (i.e. you rank at least six res. halls room types - single, double, etc. - in order of preference), and 4) room-mate matching. The later is only if you haven’t been assigned to room with someone specific as part of a mutual request and if you haven’t been assigned to a single. Here are the questions used to determine room-mate matching:

Roommate Matching
Considered as a final priority along with available single rooms
If we are not always able to accommodate a specific roommate request and we do not assign you to a single room, we will use the following questions to assist with assigning a roommate.

Description Preference

1Are you a non-smoker?

2Are you a non-smoker who objects to smoking?

3Do you prefer limited hours for guests to visit?

4Do you prefer set quiet hours for study and sleep?

5Do you prefer staying up late?

6Is keeping your room clean a priority for you?

7Is having an active social life important to you?

8Is being best friends w/ your roommate important?

5

@stormypanda thanks for the great list! I don’t know if you can answer this or not, but which one would you think is the best for me, if I want a nice social life, nothing too wild, but also to be able to get away and be left alone some times? Right now, I’m thinking probably Comstock or Centennial, I really like the location of Comstock, near the river and looking at the city, but I’ve heard it’s kind of boring and out of the way.

6

@maoxingren - we just toured Comstock - it’s right on the East Bank across from Coffman (the student union). That’s the heart of campus - definitely NOT out of the way. However, it is a lot of “up and down” because it’s built into the bluff by the river. Makes for wonderful views.

You should check out the details at the UMN Housing site. They have a video tour as well as a 360-view of a representative room. You can also see where it’s located on the campus map.

7

I think Centennial and Comstock are both really good options for you. Honestly it’s hard to say which one is better because they both have their pros/cons. I’ll talk about them a bit more in detail, maybe it’ll help you a bit in picking which one.

Comstock is probably the quieter of the two because it isn’t in Superblock. I wouldn’t say that it is out of the way because it is actually right next to Coffman as JBStillFlying said (just gotta climb 2 flights of stairs haha) and a short walk from many buildings for classes. Also you can get down to the riverside in just a few minutes which is always a plus. The building is a bit older though and the dining hall is small compared to other dining halls. I sometimes (not too often though) find it hard to find a seat in the Comstock dining hall.

On the other hand, Centennial is a bit further from most class buildings but it is really close to a bunch of restaurants/shops on Washington Ave and the other freshman dorms (so if you have friends who live in other dorms it’s really easy to find each other/hang out). One thing about Centen though is that if you want/get a single room, you may have to go a little more out of your way to meet people/make friends. I have a friend who has a single in Centen right now and she said that if she hadn’t gone out of her way to talk to/make plans with other people in her hall, it would’ve been a lot harder to make friends. The Gopher Hole is super fun; thinking about that place just makes me want to study. It’s quiet during the day (since most people are at classes) so it’s perfect for studying and at night lots of people hang out there/watch movies.