<p>The housing lottery is around the corner. Can anyone give some insight on the "good and the bad" of the houses? Maybe a list from "best to worse" with examples of why. And does the number in a blocking group have any effect on which house a group is likely to be assigned? For instance will a group of 4 or 5 most likely get put in a certain house as opposed to a group of 8, or is it totally random as it's claimed to be?</p>
<p>Everyone states that their house is the best which is a good thing, however let's hear from students (and parents out there) their thoughts?</p>
<p>The housing lottery is when all the freshman get assigned to the house that they will live in for the next 3 years. All freshman are housed together freshman year in either the Yard or in the Union Dorms. In March they are assigned to a house where they will stay for the remainder of their time at Harvard and this is done through a lottery system.</p>
<p>^Admitted students have their housing forms read and they are matched with other people into a dorm on the yard (or a union dorm).</p>
<p>What Chriscross is referring to is housing for CURRENT freshmen into the actual houses, not dorms. The process is almost completely random, Chriscross, so I wouldn’t worry about the relative merits of each. My personal ranking is this, however, and I won’t justify because it’s very subjective anyway (some people really don’t want the Quad, for example):</p>
<p>You fill out a housing questionaire after admitted. You are asked all sorts of questions like what hours do you keep, are you neat, noisy, what types of music do you like, how many roommates do you prefer, etc. During the summer the housing office assigns roommates based on answers to the above questions and also assigns you to a dorm. You can have anywhere from 0-5 roommates. The housing office does a great job in matching compatible roommates.</p>
<p>There are always trade-offs with Harvard houses: the traditional houses are beautiful but can have tiny rooms with thin walls, and doubles or triples until senior year. Mather has “singles for life”, with large common rooms in the low-rise, and great views in the high-rise–but it is concrete and moderne. The quad has large rooms with nice light, but is a bit of a hike, or shuttle. </p>
<p>After spending sophomore year in their assigned house, residents can apply to switch houses.</p>
<p>whats the difference between harvard’s housing system and yales residential college system? the yalies like to make a big deal out of their system</p>
<p>Really, the big difference between the Yale and Harvard systems is that at Yale people are assigned to a Residential College before they start, and spend their freshman years either living with other people who will be in their College on the Old Campus, or living in the Residential College itself. So there is a group of ~100 people who will be together for four years, and from Day 1 freshmen are members of a particular College and do lots of things there. At Harvard, people aren’t assigned to Houses until mid-March in their freshman years, and there is a whole process of deciding which of your friends to form a “blocking group” with, and whether to “link” to some other group, and then there is a process of random assignment that keeps blocking groups together but can send your 9th -closest friend somewhere else entirely. So there an anxiety-event right around now that doesn’t exist at Yale. And Harvard freshmen don’t do things like participate in intramural teams and clubs in the Houses (or don’t do them as much). On the other hand, they are more likely to have friends from freshman year in all of the other Houses, whereas Yalies will only have lived close by members of their own College or people from one other College. (At both schools, of course, you can meet people and make friends in many other ways besides living close to them as a freshman.)</p>
<p>Also, the Harvard Houses are somewhat more varied than the Yale Residential Colleges. In terms of architecture and location, only Stiles and Morse are really different from any other College, and the location differences are pretty minimal. At Harvard, there’s a lot of distance between the Radcliffe Quad and the River Houses, and there are significant differences between Houses that are near one another.</p>
<p>Finally, lots of people at Yale chose Yale because they liked the Residential College system, and that contributes to a general atmosphere of people being in love with the system in general and with their College in particular. Hardly anyone at Harvard chose it because of the House system – generally they chose it because it was HARVARD!, and they would have been OK with any dorm system – so they don’t spend as much time congratulating themselves on how wonderful the system is, even if they think it’s plenty wonderful (which lots of them do).</p>
<p>D is so disappointed that she has a midterm that Thursday afternoon. While everyone is preparing for the excitement on Wednesday and celebrating Thursday morning, she is going to still be studying. She can’t wait until Thursday night.</p>
<p>Since someone else posted their rankings, here are mine (biased, of course):
Adams (my house… fantastic in all respects)
Kirkland (crazy house pride / incestfest)
Quincy (location, new quincy = solid party suites, cool masters)
Lowell (location, bells, beautiful courtyard)
Eliot (fete!)
Mather (singles, spirit, but out of the way)
Dunster (getting better, but iffy rooms + semi-crazy masters)
Leverett (the most bland house, imo… except for the view from the top tower rooms)
QUAD (I just didn’t spend enough time there to tell the houses apart…)
Winthrop (iffy spirit, okay rooms that don’t get better as you get older)</p>
<p>“Hardly anyone at Harvard chose it because of the House system – generally they chose it because it was HARVARD!, and they would have been OK with any dorm system”</p>
<p>What? It was a huge factor for me choosing Harvard, and I would definitely not have been OK with any dorm system. It was a big factor for most of my friends and classmates, too. Most of us were uncomfortable with systems where lots of upperclassmen live off campus (Tufts), or in Greek houses (Cornell), or people divide into ethnically and politically segregated theme housing (Stanford).</p>
<p>I don’t think this has changed much since I graduated, because I frequently hear about it from the Harvard applicants I interview.</p>
<p>^ I have to say, we were pretty clueless about this whole House system. I graduated from Duke (Dorms or Frats), Husband from BC (it was a big commuter school back then and he lived at home), and son from Tufts (lived in an off campus apartment his last two years). I am excited on behalf of my daughter for what this House system will add to her college experience.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, in my personal opinion, the Yale housing system offers a lot more if you’re looking to get the better residential house experience. As opposed to blocking with friends halfway through your freshman year, you’re already matched with people who will be there with you all four years. It seems a lot less cliquey and stuff to me…but that’s just me :P</p>
She can’t wait until Thursday night.</p>
which I guess is a good thing!</p>