Housing? What would you do?

<p>If hell freezes over and I somehow get in, I would prefere living in a single in Harrison, Harnwell, or Hamilton. What are you guys looking at if you get in?</p>

<p>i want a room with a private bathroom! haha. well, i don't mind sharing with 3 or 4 people....but i really don't want to do the whole floor sharing thing...so either gregory or one of the high rises :)</p>

<p>i don't think i'd have a choice. i applied huntsman and all of the frosh have to live together in the internat' theme house</p>

<p>Ok here's a breakdown of housing...</p>

<p>QUAD (Fisher, Ware, Spruce College Houses) - have singles, doubles and triples. You normally share bathrooms with your hall. The rooms are decent. The atmosphere is awesome for freshman. Really social people.</p>

<p>HILL - Mostly all freshman. Really tight community feel. The rooms are pretty small (either double or single) and you share a bathroom with your hall. </p>

<p>HIGH RISES (Harrison, Hamilton, Harnwell) - 3 types of apts here. All the rooms have a bathroom, kitchen, and living room. The first type of apt is has 2 single bedrooms and 1 double (so 4 people share a bathroom). The second type of apt has 1 double bedroom (so 2 people shara a bathroom). The third type of apt has 4 single bedrooms (these are usually for seniors and sometimes juniors). The high rises are not as social but you can sure throw a hell of a good party in an apt there.</p>

<p>STOUFFER (Stouffer, Mayer, Annex) - Stouffer has mostly single and a few doubles. You share a bathroom with approximately 4-6 people. Each section in stouffer (A-F) had a kitchen and a lounge. Mayer Hall has huge apts, private bathrooms, etc. The Annex is an old frat house (used to be ZBT last year) and they converted into dorms. It's pretty run down. Stouffer people tend to be pretty studious and keep to themselves. Not a very social dorm. </p>

<p>GREGORY (Van Pelt, Class of 25) - These rooms have 4 people to one bathroom, each person has their own room, but there is no living room or kitchen. The building are pretty run down and the people are typically pretty nerdy. </p>

<p>KINGS COURT/ENGLISH HOUSE - In my opinion the worst dorms on campus. The people are super nerdy. It is usually referred to as the "nerdy asian dorm" (no offense to anyone). The rooms are pretty big in Kings Court usually doubles but you share a hall bathroom. English House is really run down and it has mostly doubles with hall bathrooms. </p>

<p>DUBOIS - The african american dorm. This is the only dorm I've actually never been in so I can't comment on it. All I know is that it's like 99% black.</p>

<p>i rly wanna be in the quad if i get in</p>

<p>wow! thank you so much bern! that will be really helpful if i get in! *cross fingers</p>

<p>thanks bern, that is really helpful!</p>

<p>hey bern...which one r u in?</p>

<p>unfortunately I'm stuck in stouffer college house. When you apply you are asked to list your top ten room choices (i.e. 1. single in ware 2. double is spruce 3. quad in harnwell, etc) and I have all quad and high rise choices...never even put stouffer down but I go stuck in it. The building (stouffer building-not mayer) is decent. I only share a bathroom with 3 other people and I have a decent sized single room which is nice for studying. The building is quiet and uneventful so when you need to study it's nice but the people are pretty antisocial...seriously I party a lot and i've seen like 3 other people from my building that go out and party. It's kind of funny our building's night guard knows me by name because I show up drunk at 4am and I'm the only one who does.</p>

<p>thanks a lot bern. again, you prove to be the ultimate penn insider..</p>

<p>hey, what exactly do you mean by "rundown"?</p>

<p>because when I hear that I think leaky pipes, rats and all that...</p>

<p>once on campus you'll see how most frat houses are pretty trashed and rundown (with the exception of the Castle of course) so when the school randomly converted one into dorms it didn't renovate it. They kind of just cleaned it out. I actually think the only thing that was renovated was the fire alarm system. From the outside it looks ok (<a href="http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/housing/annex.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/housing/annex.html&lt;/a&gt;) but on the inside it just is kind of trashed. ZBT was/is(their underground parties are awesome) notorious for throwing huge, destructive parties and the building just looks like it has taken its share of blows. I don't know if there are leaky pipes or rats...</p>

<p>for gregory and EC by run down I mean the building are just old. Cinder block walls, you'll probably have leaky pipes, and i've heard some rat stories. The buildings really just need to be renovated but my guess is that they wont start renovation until the High rise renovations are completed (sept 2005). So don't expect them to be renovated next year.</p>

<p>pics of KCEC: <a href="http://kcech.house.upenn.edu/pictures/house.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://kcech.house.upenn.edu/pictures/house.php&lt;/a>
KC looks decent (3,4,5 pics and it's not bad)
EC is disguisting (last pic titled "view from courtyard")</p>

<p>If I had to rank the dorms by quality of living it would be: (best to worst)
1. High Rises
2. Quad
3. Stouffer
4. Gregory
5. Hill
6. KCEC
**Leaving DuBois out since I've never really visited</p>

<p>Socially I would rank them: (from best to worst)
1. Quad
2. Hill
3. High Rises
4. Gregory
5. Stouffer
6. KCEC
**DuBois again can't really be counted (although I guess it would be social if you are african american)</p>

<p>I think it depends year to year. I mean it's kind of random what house your friends are going to end up in...</p>

<p>bern - do you ever feel not safe on campus? i heard that there have been 4 robberies - 2 armed ones - lately and it kinda scares me...</p>

<p>4 robberies out of 10,000 students....</p>

<p>haha. okay, chocoman, thats true. its not so much me...just my mom that worries way too much</p>

<p>well you live in toronto... which has about the same number of people as Philly. So you should be used to city people, even though Canadiens are friendlier...</p>

<p>i'm actually in the suburbs of toronto...just a small town...thornhill...i'm pretty sheltered...haha..."Canadiens are friendlier..."</p>

<p>if we get in, you gotta tell us everything we need to know abuot living in phily :)</p>