Housing

I just go accepted to penn state. Where is the best place for a freshman to live?

Depends on what you want out of your experience. East is all-freshmen; I’ve heard it’s good for making friends. Also rumored to be loud and not particularly big. Pollock is a little quieter but with a decent amount of freshmen still. West has the Engineering House; South has honors housing (blessedly quiet) and sororities; North is (mostly?) suites and is also really far from everything.

There are numerous, numerous threads on this topic, including OnwardState’s take on housing. There is no “best” place, as bodangles says. Depends on what you want. East is almost entirely freshmen and is also far, far away (referred to as The Tundra) from classes; yes there is a bus, but you will have to wait your turn for an empty seat or hike in to class. As mentioned, these are the smallest rooms and the noisiest dorms. South dorms are newly renovated and spiffy, Eastview Terrace is only for upperclassmen. North is entirely suites (2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 4 people) and significantly more expensive but also has carpet and AC. It is not far from Arts&Architecture, the HUB, or Forum and Thompson (?) the main lecture hall for GenEds and is the smallest set of dorms (there are 4). S2’s friends in East used his room as a study spot rather than hike back to East between classes. West has a growing number of freshmen and there’s a higher concentration of engineering/science/IST people there, it’s close to IST, Rec Hall, Hammond and Pattee (the library complex)

Dorms are not your whole experience, so I would not agonize over the choice too much, apart from distance to central campus and your willingness to walk. My son lived in North 3 of his 4 years and loved it there. Some people love East – I don’t know lots of them — and yet I know students who have moved from South because it was noisy (it’s next to College Ave) at night.

It really depends on you; each residence hall has its own pros and cons. And even if you choose a particular dorm, there’s no guarantee that you will be placed there. I chose pollock and south as my first and second preference, but I ended up at west, which is not bad at all. Although west does not have all freshmen, there are still quite a few of freshmen here and meeting some upperclassmen is not a bad thing either. Honestly I don’t think any of the dorms are that bad, especially when you get used to living there.
I personally enjoy where i’m living right now because it’s close to the library which makes latenight studying so much easier because I don’t like to study in my room and the lounge usually has quite a few people there. Also, most of my classes are close to my dorm.

How many Freshman are in North? I am thinking about living there in the SLO for Arts and Arch

The buildings are smaller – 4 buildings, 3 floors each. I would guess about a third are freshmen, but once you are talking SLOs, the advantage of being among your peers in a major outweighs class rank (which is less important in college than it was in high school). For example, when you are scheduling, an upperclassman in Arts/Arch theatre can give you info about classes that you aren’t going to get from a random freshman on your floor in East.

I have sent you a PM about other North details. Remember, North costs quite a bit more, so make sure you can afford to be there.