<p>I was surprised to discover that Tufts doesnt really have much of a house system - students assigned to House XYZ who end of staying there for three or four years. Other colleges accomplish this by giving house residents priority to stay in that house if they want. Years later, alumni still feel a bond towards the house they lived in while at college.</p>
<p>At Tufts, it seems like theres no house loyalty whatsoever. Youre at House X one year, at House Y the next year, and (if you opt to stay on campus) at House Z the year after that. Plus, if Princeton Review has the numbers right, only about a 1/3 of students even stay on campus their junior and senior years.</p>
<p>I dont get it - doesnt that make it harder to develop a sense of community? The same Princeton Review report also gives Tufts an exceptionally high "quality of life rating, so Tufts students are clearly happy, despite what seems to me like kind of haphazard living arrangements. Can someone please help me understand?</p>
<p>I’ve always thought that the house system was an exception rather than a rule. I agree that’s a pity. My impression is that a successful house system includes things like resident faculty members and a dining room for each house, which means that the college has to have the physical facilities and resources to support the system. </p>
<p>From my sample of one student I’ve seen community develop in different ways. D1’s freshman year floor was very very close initially. By second semester, some of the residents became involved with the greek system which became their primary social focus. Others found community through on-campus involvement e.g. sports teams, especially intensive coursework, the student paper, religious groups, etc etc. </p>
<p>I think that’s pretty typical of the college experience at most schools.</p>
<p>Well, I was spoiled by my experience (many decades ago!) at a liberal arts college. Even after spending two years off campus on an extended “junior year abroad,” I not only returned to the same dorm I’d lived in before, but the same hall within that dorm!</p>
<p>And I remember really identifying with my dorm . . . as did most of my friends. The X dorm kids had a very different persona than the Y dorm kids, and so on.</p>
<p>The idea of “just be happy you’ve got a room!” may be the norm on some campuses . . . but I think those kids are missing out on something special.</p>
<p>Why juniors and seniors like to live of campus? I thought $5000 per year housing is pretty good, about $600 per month. I guess off campus renting is about the same or more? And you have to consider the transportation etc. Maybe some students like cooking? I think I am missing something here.</p>
<p>Cooking is available at many of the residence halls on campus. And off-campus housing is likely to be significantly more expensive than on campus. Remember, on campus, you’re just paying for the 9-month school year. Off campus, you have to pay for 12 months. Plus, housing in the Boston area is not cheap. Transportation - usually not an issue, since there are a lot of houses and apartments available within walking distance.</p>
<p>But there is limited housing available for juniors and seniors on campus. There is on-campus housing for all freshmen and sophomores - but not for upperclassmen. So I guess, due to necessity, it’s become the norm for upperclassmen to move off campus.</p>
<p>I’m not thrilled about it - I’d prefer my student be part of a fully residential community. But it is what it is.</p>
<p>The dorm is assigned based on your lottery number. You get your number in the spring of your freshman year for the next 3 years. If you’re a junior and you have a bad # you have no choice but to move off campus. I too prefer him to stay on campus, but he has a bad # and if he waits until spring when dorm assignments are done he might not have a dorm. So he and his friends already started looking for a house. He claims that’s its cheaper then campus, but I guess we’ll see. All houses are around campus, walking distance. So transportation is not an issue. As far as cooking is concerned you can still buy a meal plan unless they want to cook.
Fromcalifornia, the dorm might be $5000, but there is also $1500 ($750 per semester) dorm reservation charge or something like that</p>
<p>Ooh! I did not know that Tufts does not have enough dorms for the upper classes. I thought all private schools provide dorms to all students. No wonder juniors and seniors live off the campus. I was telling my son that just live on campus for 4 years. That might be not practical now. Too bad!</p>
<p>Once I read a thread, one Tufts graduate student could not find a room around the campus. Are there enough houses for rent? Some might live far away from the school. </p>
<p>How do you know you got bad housing number? I mean smaller number number is good, so you can get housing assignment quicker?</p>
<p>Actually the larger the number the better it is. The kids know how good or bad their numbers are when they get it.
From what I heard you have to look for a house in the fall. If you wait till later, all the good once are gone. But a lot of juniors go abroad so I’m not sure how this works.
It’s iall new to me too. I will let you know next year once my son goes through the process</p>
<p>momworried - I think you son is panicking for no reason. I read somewhere on the Tufts housing pages that all juniors who’ve wanted to stay on campus during the past few years have gotten a room. If they don’t get one in the spring lottery, they’re put on a waiting list. In recent years, the housing office has been able to accommodate all the juniors on the waiting list. (And, since juniors and seniors are guaranteed single rooms, the last minute assignment might not be in a preferred location - but at least it won’t be a triple with two sophomores!)</p>
<p>Also, a student’s lottery number does change from one year to the next, and the sophomore and senior year numbers are designed to be reciprocals - so a bad sophomore year number means a good senior year number. (The junior year number is completely independent.)</p>
<p>fromcalifornia - I think housing is probably more difficult for a first-year grad student, who (I’m guessing) won’t know until late Spring that they’re attending Tufts. At that point, finding housing right next to campus probably isn’t easy. But both grad and undergrads are eligible to be RA’s, which would guarantee a spot on campus.</p>
<p>momworried - Does it bother your son that so few upperclass students live on campus?</p>
<p>Well, I was spoiled by my experience (many decades ago!) at Tufts. After spending my freshman year in one dorm, I moved to another dorm my sophomore year and met my future wife!</p>
<p>After nearly 30 years of marriage I cant help but think that kids who live in the same dorm for all four years might be missing out on something special . </p>
<p>You have brought up a very interesting subject. Tufts residential system is quite different from a house system but it seems to work pretty well, with a different set of pros and cons. </p>
<p>I will try to explain the Tufts system this weekend when I have more time to post.</p>
<p>I also have some questions about a house system</p>
<p>Dodersmom, in the spring of your freshman year you get lottery numbers for your next 3 years at Tufts. They’re all different. All 3 that my son got are mediocre. And he’s not the one that’s panicking, I am. LOL. He also prefers to live off campus. No RAs to deal with. The off campus housing is right next to Tufts so you still feel part of the community. </p>
<p>Mastadon, I’m looking forward to your explanation of the housing system because I’m still confused about it. The only thing I have to go on is what my son tells me and he’s not always the most reliable source.</p>
<p>While I haven’t looked closely at a lot of schools the only school I’ve heard of with the system you describe is Harvard. I have close friends who went to many of the NESCAC schools, Ivys, and some other top schools around the country/northeast and from what I’ve heard most schools have some variation of the lottery system employed by Tufts.</p>
<p>Tufts is actually fairly unique in its off-campus culture which I think does lend itself to a somewhat residential feel. The majority of students live in houses close to campus and can continue occupying them for multiple years once they’re there. It’s not uncommon for friend groups, clubs, or sports teams to occupy the same house for multiple “generations”. It also lends itself to a larger campus presence over the summer as many students stick around and work in the Boston area (or find subletters who are working there).</p>
<p>While you can theoretically cook in the dorms almost no one does unless you’re in a suite; trying to cook in a single kitchen shared by a few hundred people sounds pretty difficult.</p>
<p>As someone who worked at or near Tufts each summer I was much happier having gotten the opportunity to live off-campus junior and senior year than I would have been if I’d lived on campus for those years (even in the same residence) but had to return home or find alternate summer housing (and my parents live on the green line).</p>
<p>I am sure there are exceptions, but my D1 is a senior and any of her friends that wanted to live on campus all 4 years were able to get housing. However, most prefer to move off-campus at some point. Off-campus for my D1 is closer to the academic quad than her sister’s downhill dorm. On her street every other house is Tuft’s kids including some “team” houses. It is turing out to be a great introduction to life beyond college.</p>
<p>Many houses are rented in the fall, although my D1 had her rental fall through and found her current apartment in the spring while she was studying abroad. The Tufts Life and jumpoffcampus websites make it very easy, and there does not appear to be any shortage of nearby rentals.</p>
<p>In terms of the house system, there are pluses and minuses, and the dorm lottery like Tufts is much more the norm. There are only a few schools that have a really fully committed house system (Rice, Chicago, Yale) and many that have it in a modified version or as an option or for underclassmen. Like any community the house system can be wonderful if you feel like you fit in, and oppressive if the particular house community does not work for you.</p>
<p>My DDs wanted something different from dorm life in different years. First year lots of time hanging out on their hall, after that too many other activities and friend groups to be that interested in socializing with the people who happened to live near them. They have changed dorm locations and the type of room depending on what worked for them in that particular year and had the option to live with different people, etc. I don’t think they feel they missed out on anything.</p>
<p>I love the residential college system and think Tufts misses out on that. Son was in a freshman/sophomore dorm freshman year (Miller) that was nicely designed. He had a big room there was a big lounge for his wing of the floor that always seemed to have people hanging out in it. His biggest regret is that he was so busy studying (Arabic and EPIIC) that he didn’t make as many friends as he would have liked. Sophomore year he was in a horrible double that never should have been one. He couldn’t even sit up in his bed without hitting his head on the ceiling. The lounges in that dorm were much smaller darker and the big spaces on the ground floor were rarely used. Junior year he spent abroad (and that’s a very large contigent at Tufts) and senior year he’s in an all senior dorm. He really likes the idea of an all senior dorm, so I guess that’s an advantage. He had no desire to live off campus cooking for himself - he had plenty of that on his junior year abroad!</p>
<p>My son cooked quite a few pies in the dorm kitchens.</p>
<p>I thought the idea of the three year lottery was that no one would get three bad numbers - it’s all supposed to average out. I think my son’s best number was for junior year when he was away, but he loves this year’s room - it was built as a double but he’s alone in it.</p>
<p>BeanTownGirl - I don’t know where you looked, but I’ve found quite a few colleges that give priority in housing assignments to students already living in that house. In other words, once you get into House X, you get to stay there. Brown takes this one step further and gives students “squatters’ rights” in their individual dorm rooms, so, unless you’re in a freshmen-only dorm, once you get a room you like, you can keep it. The lottery system comes into play only for students who want to change rooms.</p>
<p>Obviously, this is an option only where there’s enough housing for everyone. But, where it is possible, dorms develop “personalities” - the continuity from one year to the next allows the personalities to develop. That’s going to be lost where the entire population of a dorm changes from one year to the next . . . and I think that’s too bad.</p>
<p>It’s been almost 40 years since I graduated . . . and the dorm I lived in is still the coolest one on campus!</p>
<p>fwiw, very few of the dorms at Tufts are worth spending more than two years in, let alone three or four. Except for (maybe) a few apartment-style dorms (one of which is seniors only) it’s definitely advantageous to live off-campus. The students that get those choices in the lottery are pretty lucky but to let them stay there for multiple years in a row would simply be unfair. </p>
<p>We’re both clearly biased towards the system that we each experienced and enjoyed but I personally enjoyed the Tufts off-campus community more than I would have enjoyed staying in the same dorm for three years, unless it was a much nicer dorm.</p>
I’ve seen community develop in different ways. D1’s freshman year floor was very very close initially. By second semester, some of the residents became involved with the greek system which became their primary social focus. Others found community through on-campus involvement e.g. sports teams, especially intensive coursework, the student paper, religious groups, etc etc. </p>