<p>I put john jay single as my number one choice… do I have a pretty good chance of getting it or should I prepare myself more for the 2nd or 3rd choice?</p>
<p>most get their first choice …unless you chose furnald</p>
<p>This is from a WikiCU article on Furnald: </p>
<p>• Furnald is a relatively quiet and antisocial residence hall. There are only 25 people on each floor, of whom about 12 are first years, compared to 40+ first years on the average John Jay or Carman floor. Furthermore, the sophomores in Furnald already have their own social networks and tend not to socialize with the first years. So the building doesn’t have John Jay’s or Carman’s social atmosphere, where hundreds of eager beaver first years all want to get to know each other. This is a significant drawback since most students’ social networks are built up from their first year floormates.
• Social interaction in lounges is infrequent (relative to other first year dorms).
• Kitchens are less useful for first years required to be on a meal plan.
• Layout is not conducive to intra-floor socializing, since stairways and elevators are on the north and south ends of the hall, which somewhat isolates the north and south sides of the floor from one another
• Uncommon for people to leave their doors open (relative to other first year dorms). </p>
<p>Are these comments valid?
I’m an incoming freshman and I really don’t want to live in a dorm where sophomores think we’re invisible! </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Oh and I have another question: </p>
<p>Are doubles at John Jay really that bad? I hear it’s not really popular.</p>
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<p>yea, sounds about right. i lived in furnald as a sophomore and the setup of the building does not promote socializing at all. the only nice thing is the large lounge with a full kitchen on every floor but it seemed to me like the freshmen didn’t have as much of an opportunity to make friends as i did on john jay. for the record i chose furnald as my first choice freshman year and am really glad i didn’t get it. also unless you are in one of the rooms on the main hallway (which historically have been for sophomores) leaving your door open won’t do any good since noone will pass by due to the layout of the floor</p>
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<p>there are two types of john jay doubles…the walk through double and the L-double (shaped like an L). with the walk through you basically have two singles but the person on the inside has to walk through the other person’s room to get to his. the L double is just a regular double with a strange shape. </p>
<p>there is no up side to living in either of these doubles and people who would prefer living in a double would rather live in a more social environment like carmen.</p>
<p>Thanks Shraf! </p>
<p>Based on the widespread opinion that Furnald isn’t a great choice for freshmen, I’ve decided to rank it lower on the housing app. </p>
<p>As for JJ doubles, I guess living in an exclusively first-year dorm beats living in the antisocial Furnald. Also, apparently some of the JJ doubles are walk-throughs, which offers a certain degree of privacy I guess.</p>
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<p>Interesting side note: one of the doubles nowadays is not the same as it used to be. Up til 2 years ago the '35 line was a double and the '45 line was a 150sq ft single. They moved a wall a little though and changed it :)</p>
<p>This thread has been really helpful. I initially thought I wanted Furnald, but I ended up choosing </p>
<p>1 Carman double
2 JJ single
3 JJ double
4 Furnald single
5 Furnald double</p>
<p>So which one is better?
Single-sex floors or Co-Ed?</p>
<p>JJ isnt as antisocial as people make it out to be. you gotta understand that every freshmen is in the same position as you – most of them will be as frantically desperate to make friends as you are. as such, the first few weeks everyone will be socializing outside their rooms, going out to tom’s and JJ’s place together, and stuff like that. but when you need some alone time, its always nice to have a single to return to. </p>
<p>just one thing that is sometimes under-emphasized as a john jay con are the thin walls. when they say thin they mean it – you should expect to hear what everyone is doing for 2 rooms in each direction and in the hallways too (can make sleeping a ***** when people come back drunk at 4 in the morning and start singing in the hallways -_-)</p>
<p>also for those hoping to get furnhald your chances went up this year – thanks to budget issues, columbia is turning 25 furnald rooms into freshmen housing. that translates to better odds of you getting it if you pick furnald (though they are still pretty low)</p>
<p>In terms of floors, go for the Co-ed floors… even if you’d prefer a single sex floor.</p>
<p>The co-ed floors are 2 and 3 (and maybe the mezz) and don’t have very good views in Carman. Any floor above 7 has a pretty sweet view if you’re on the N side. Also, co-ed floors are shorter, meaning that there are fewer people to socialize with in your immediate vicinity. </p>
<p>Also, don’t worry bout the thin-ness of the walls… they’re equally thin everywhere. Even though Carman is cinderblock, it still echoes any noise above a quiet conversation to your neighbor. </p>
<p>As an interesting fact… this year Furnald has the MOST write-ups for weed. … and it’s the smallest dorm.</p>
<p>omg… I knew I should have asked before I placed Single-sex…</p>
<p>I’m confused. You say coed is good, but then you list reasons why it’s bad.</p>
<p>^ Maybe he got confused? and he was actually talking about Single-sex?</p>
<p>Because I heard that single-sex is floors 2 and 3</p>
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<p>that’s quite an exaggeration… you make it sound like you can hear people talking in the room next door which is not true…sure you can hear when people are being loud next door or in the hallway but that’s not surprising. if you want to see thin walls then go take a tour of river…those walls are THIN</p>
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<p>that’s supposed to say single-sex</p>
<p>the single-sex floors are almost exclusively for observant jews and others who feel it is improper to share a floor with the opposite sex. the guy’s floor tends to be very small and you’ll have no fun there (i’m guessing). the girl’s floor i’m assuming will be alot like a barnard first year dorm. </p>
<p>i think you can switch your selection until the deadline</p>
<p>Are there any differences between Hartley and Wallach dorms? </p>
<p>I’m not really into the whole LLC concept and coed bathrooms, so I’m going to rank them lower on my list… but I’m not sure whether I should put Hartley before Wallach or Wallach before Hartley. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
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<p>only difference i can think of is that the wallach entrance is closed at night so you’d have to walk through john jay or hartley to get to your room. either way if you rank them the last two (as i did) there is a very very slim chance you’ll end up there</p>
<p>Great, ranking them as the last two for sure then!</p>
<p>what is included in room and board? because i remember the estimated cost sheet columbia sent me said that it was <10,000 (don’t remember exact figure) but i went onto the website with the description of each dorm and it said all the freshman dorms were 5810 a year…</p>