<p>could someone explain how freshman are placed in houses/dorms? are there choices? and does each place have its own personality and what are they?</p>
<p>When you commit to going to Bowdoin, there are a bunch of forms to fill out. One of those forms is the “housing form” which asks a ton of questions about what time you usually go to bed, whether you study with music on or off, how much you’d like to have friends over to your room or go over to others’ rooms for social events, etc. It’s super super super detailed, but it means that you will be placed with roommates who are good matches for yourself.</p>
<p>All Bowdoin freshmen live on-campus in one of 8 “first-year bricks”. 6 of them have 4 person rooms and inside each room is 2 bedrooms and a big common room. 2 “bricks” have 2 person rooms and inside each room is 1 bedroom and 1 common room. There is one dorm that is chem-free (although all of the bricks are SUPPOSED to be chemfree the rules in the chemfree dorm - Hyde - are more strict). The chem-free dorm tends to be a little quieter (and some may argue cleaner) than the other freshman bricks, but that said they are all super nice. They were all renovated within the last 5 years or so and are all located very centrally on campus. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that there are any prevailing trends or “types” for the different bricks. By the end of the year you may have noticed some trends but they’ll be different the next year with the next group of freshmen. Maybe other Bowdoin students can comment on that?</p>
<p>They are all centrally located, but the “Dorms like Palaces” PR rating is absurd. As several summer visit reports here on CC have mentioned, Bowdoin’s Dorms are nothing above average. They merely exist within a pretty campus environment. They put five students in one unit, which means 3 beds to one room. Cramped and crummy.</p>
<p>The residence halls - “dorms” - are invariably exceptional, and, as mentioned on prior threads, one attends college primarily for academic purposes.</p>
<p>That CC visit report doesn’t match up. Bowdoin dorming is exceptional and all the freshman bricks were renovated just a few years ago. The dorming facilities are practically new. However for the incoming freshman, it will be a bit cramped because the yield was very high this year and the class is overenrolled. High yield is a good thing, but not in the case of overenrolling. They should accept fewer students next year to negate that.</p>
<p>^Agreed. But SundayMorning1 still shouldn’t have bumped this.</p>