<p>Ok, I'll admit, I'm a little bit confuzzled as to how this all works out. What's the difference between the residential colleges, what do you have to pick as a freshman, and what's this about 2-year vs 4-year colleges?</p>
<p>Also, if it's not too much to ask, what do you recommend for room sizes? If you're a student right now, why did you pick doubles, quads, singles, etc?</p>
<p>The residential colleges each have their own personalities re dorms. There are currently four two year res colleges (rocky ,butler, wilson, and forbes) and two 4-year colleges (whitman and mathey). However, butler is supposed to be finished by 2009 at which point it will become a four year college. Each two year college is paired with a four year college, and at the end of your sophomore year you have a choice to stay in either your affiliated four year college or move to upperclass housing. </p>
<p>The class is supposedly divided into the 6 colleges randomly, and although there has been some talk of some famous people getting to choose (ie meg whitman's kids), for you its likely as good as random. It is only when you get into the college do your choices matter. So rocky/mathey have mostly quads and doubles, whitman has quads and singles, butler currently has singles and triples, forbes has singles and doubles, and wilson has a mix. So if you request a quad and you get into forbes, you're not going to get one. Likewise, there is a very very small chance of getting a single if youre in rocky. </p>
<p>I asked for and got a quad my freshman year (in wilson). I really liked it because theres a common room, plus you have several roommates- which can be good or bad, but chances are that you get along with atleast one of them. I would have been a bit lonely in a single, and a double doesn't give you very much privacy (I lived in a one room double sophomore year). It all depends on your personality though.</p>
<p>As I have read the web-pages of each res. college at Princeton web-site, I realized that the colleges are not identical in terms of the kind of events, clubs, language tables, trips offered at each college. For example, Mathey college seems to have everything my D might want accessible - language tables in all languages she is interested in, chamber music groups ... and most trips to Broadway shows and Metropolitan Opera. Some other colleges have less of these and more of scientific seminars or theatrical productions.</p>
<p>My question is: do they somehow find out and recognize students' interests before dividing them into colleges? If not, do students, who got into "wrong" (less suitable to their interests) college, have an opportunity to participate in the clubs/events/tables/groups/seminars in other colleges?</p>
<p>You may usually attend events at any residential college (For example, language tables are held at a college but people from any residential college can go to them) and trips are often open to all residential colleges after a period of time (I've been to a Rocky trip, and I'm not in Rocky) and I believe anyone can attend a certain college's seminar/talk if they're interested.</p>
<p>So in short, being in one residential college doesn't prevent you from going to the majority of events of another.</p>
<p>not all rescolleges keep their events updated-- wilson and whitman (the two colleges that I am familiar with) have at least as many trips to broadway/the met as do rocky/mathey. The language tables are the only things that are really different, as you don't need 2 swahili tables etc, but anyone from any college can go to them (as can upperclassmen, even without meal plans). You can also go to any speaker at any rescollege's special dining hall events.</p>