<p>What are the pros/cons for each dorm house at CMU? Which one would you suggest for a frosh? Which one is the most social (but not necessarily full of a bunch of partiers)? Any insight would be awesome!</p>
<p>Since most places where freshmen live on campus are freshmen only areas, it is my belief that there can be no dorm that year after year is full of partiers because there is no time for a culture to develop, since there's 100% turnover. Everyone gets placed in their rooms within the dorm pretty randomly, which sometimes makes floors that are much crazier than others, but you can't do anything about that. My floor happens to be the quietest in the building, and I'm fine with that.</p>
<p>I think E Morewood Tower is great (all freshmen)- it's close to the UC, has food in it, has a cluster/printer and work out room, and the rooms are nicely sized. Shared bathrooms aren't as big of a deal as people think they are. There is A-D tower (being renamed, actually) that has a mix of classes, and it's connected by the breezeway.</p>
<p>Mudge is nice; I went in there for the first time a few days ago. It's farther than New House or Morewood, has really pretty lounges, and some freshman only areas. Closer to Shadyside if you have lots of money to burn on designer clothes/shoes/purses.</p>
<p>New House (all freshmen) has small rooms with air conditioning, pretty much the only air conditioned dorms on campus, which makes them more expensive. It's a nice, new building, but again, the rooms are little shoeboxes.</p>
<p>Donner smells. Well, they say it doesn't, and that inside it's nice because they remodeled a year or two ago. Building is ugly, though. Right now, something like 3 floors are freshmen, one is upperclassmen who retained, but that will change for 2007.</p>
<p>Hammerschlag (freshmen guys) has little rooms, but alot of pride. They sold sausages at their sausage fest, benefiting Katrina victims.</p>
<p>Living in the Oakland Apartments is probably a bad idea as a freshman, just because it's a long way to walk and it's kind of a pain to walk to campus to eat, or have to cook for yourself.</p>
<p>I'd second KrazyKow's description. There are tons of other descriptions in the threads if you want to search for more info.</p>
<p>To add to New House: its NEW. It looks like a hotel, serously. The rooms are small but the public lounges are GREAT. New House really pushes for social life. If you're not studying, you're not going to be sitting in your room; you'll be in the lounges with friends. Most floors on New House are communities within themselves.</p>