<p>Hi Mike,
Good luck with the college search. Tufts is a great place.</p>
<p>Housing: There is a roommate survey, but it’s fairly basic. Things like smoking v. non-smoking, noise level preference, study habits, degree of cleanliness, etc. They make no attempt to match roommates based on personality.<br>
(An aside: they DO, however, make a very concerted effort to match roommates based on how amusing they think it would be to have people with those particular names in the same room. The most basic form this takes is their noticeable preference for matching people with the same name, so you’ll get a hall full of Mike and Mike, Dan and Dan, Katie and Katie, etc. They also like pop-culture or historical references: I’ve seen roommate pairings like Lewis & Clark, Tegan & Sara, Ben & Jerry, Jon & Stewart, and Matt & Kim (Kim was a male Asian student) in my time at Tufts.)
You can request a single, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Dorms themselves vary considerably in terms of size, age, and, obviously, location. Dorms are distributed throughout campus, but there are two major clusters “uphill” and “downhill”. Uphillers claim proximity to most of the academic buildings and thus shorter walking times to classes, while downhillers enjoy closer proximity to Davis Square as well as the campus center and the vastly superior of the two dining halls. (Some deluded uphillers will try to convince you they actually prefer Carmichael to Dewick. They are liars, and they are not to be trusted. “Stir fry night” is a cheap and tawdry charade, no matter what they say.) The newest dorms tend not to be the largest dorms, but people prefer them anyway. Few universal commonalities exist among all the dorms, so it doesn’t make sense to say much about them collectively, except to say that even in the “worst” dorms, the buildings themselves are almost never significant sources of complaints by Tufts students.</p>
<p>Athletic facilities: In addition to various tennis courts, basketball courts, and outdoor tracks distributed over the campus, as well as yoga and dance classes offered in two locations on campus, Tufts has a modern, well-maintained athletic complex that includes an indoor track and indoor courts, a pool, and a fitness center very well equipped with nautilus and free-weight equipment, all of which is free for student use. The Athletics department also sponsors a number of great free programs, my favorite of which is fitness assessment and personal training (up to six sessions) to help any student achieve their health goals for free. There are also PE classes you can take, paid for out of your regular tuition, though some courses have additional charges for equipment (rock climbing, etc.)<br>
The major downsides are that the fitness center, though well-equipped, is small and can easily get crowded, and the athletic complex is surprisingly far away from virtually everything on campus. Both of these problems have been partially remedied by the installation of work-out equipment in the basement of South Hall (downhill), but I’ve never been to this facility and thus can’t speak to it - I hear they only have cardio down there. Going at particular times of day, or taking a PE class, will get around the crowdedness problem, as there are definitely peak periods of activity, and PE classes get priority over the equipment.
I should mention, however, that Tufts has already raised the vast majority (perhaps all - I haven’t been keeping up) of funding for a $30 million expansion of the athletic complex. Plans include expanding and updating the pool and diving area, installing regulation squash courts, the creation of additional spaces for aerobics, yoga, dance, and phys ed classes, and most notably (in my opinion) more than doubling the size of the fitness center and adding equipment, which should alleviate the crowding problem for good. As for the distance problem? Well, if you can’t walk a mile, you probably wouldn’t be going to the gym anyway. 
Much of this work has already started (the gym is currently closed for renovations, in fact) and will likely be finished by the time you arrive on campus. </p>
<p>Again, good luck in your search!</p>