<p>Anyone with even a passing familiarity with UIUC knows that the "Six-Pack" residence halls are notorious for partying. Binge drinking is rampant. This of course leads to problems, as people tend behave badly when they're drunk. I lived there for a semester and found it to be a very unhealthy environment.</p>
<p>Still, I'm hopeful that rebuilding this complex will lead to a more positive environment. If the new Ikenberry Commons is the most modern and desirable residence area on campus, people will want to live there. Because sophomores get priority over freshmen, this implies that the complex will be predominantly sophomores. This is likely to improve the environment because, in my experience, the problem cases tended to be freshmen. Many were headed into the Greek system, so they would be living in a house instead of the dorms during their sophomore year. Of course, the hard-core problem cases are likely to flunk out within the first year.</p>
<p>Nor is this effect likely to simply shift the problem over to the Urbana residence halls. ISR, PAR, FAR, etc., aren't conducive to partying. They're much farther from the fraternities and somewhat farther from the bars. They also have an entrenched culture which doesn't welcome the excesses of the Six-Pack.</p>
<p>Is this analysis valid? Is the building of the Ikenberry Commons indeed likely to be a new beginning for this complex? Or is it likely to be the same destructive culture in fancier buildings?</p>
<p>hey you seem you know the housing very well? im planning to transfer to uiuc this fall of 2010 as a sophmore (general admissions) but have a couple questions. how late will be too late for applying for housing? also, can you recommend me some dorms? i dont mind partying but would like it to be nice dorms and cheap (if that can happen). also i heard about some lottery with housing but if you can explain more that be great. thanks</p>
<p>I disagree on your take of the “six-pack”, I live in the six-pack this year and I have made some of my best friends here. True, a large amount of people tend to “party” but they don’t party in the dorms. Drinking is not allowed in the dorms, RA’s are constantly on duty so for those that do choose to drink in the dorms, they have to be quiet. And if they are not quiet they will most likely get caught by an RA. </p>
<p>The six pack is a GREAT environment for freshmen or transfer students because everyone is really friendly and sociable. </p>
<p>As for the new dorm, I don’t think it will change the six-pack. The new dorm houses under 200 people all of which are sophomores and above. This dorm probably will be rather tame and not really be involved with the rest of the six pack dorms. I think the rest of the six pack will remain the same and have the same reputation. </p>
<p>Bigboi26- I’m not sure when housing ends but I would recommend the six pack because everyone is social and it will be easy to fit in. PAR is on the other side of campus from the six pack but they have amazing food so that’s always a plus. Both are university housing so it will be the cheapest dorms on campus. You can always go private certified for higher quality housing and bathrooms for 2-4 people (instead of community bathrooms)</p>
<p>This lottery… everyone picks their top 3 places that they want to live (you cant pick specific dorms, but you can pick the area it’s in) ikenberry north and south are the six pack dorms. and then they assign people to specific areas/dorms according to their rankings of their top 3 dorms and the earlier they submitted their application.</p>
<p>Take3, welcome to a major state university! In fact, welcome to college in general. People party. That is part of college. College is about more than just taking classes and learning about whatever subject. It is about being on your own for the first time and learning how to be a productive human being. The simple fact of the matter is that when people come to college, they oftentimes are facing their first real experience with true freedom from the rules of anyone but themselves and the law (which is oftentimes ignored).</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, college students, especially the younger ones, are going to party, regardless of their surroundings. You very well may be an influx of sophomores into Ikenberry, but that doesn’t mean that the sophomores don’t drink or that the people in FAR/PAR/ISR won’t just drink there instead. They will. They always will.</p>
<p>As long as college continues to be the point in most peoples’ lives where they first start living on their own, it will continue to go hand in hand with partying. That is just how it is.</p>
<p>uOFibabe09, saying that “The six pack is a GREAT environment for freshmen or transfer students because everyone is really friendly and sociable” is kind of an overly general statement. Not everyone is looking for that rambunctious atmosphere, and trust me, it is perfectly possible to make friends even in the lowliest, quietest halls of ISR. I got stuck on one of the worst floors I have ever seen my freshman year in ISR and I still made friends and had a good college experience.</p>
<p>uofibabe, the lottery system is different this year. i spoke directly with a housing rep on the phone recently. it doesn’t matter how early you get your housing app in. anyone who submits theirs before the priority deadline (which i think is may 15) has the same chance at getting any dorm. the applications will be put in random order and people will be assigned accordingly.</p>
<p>also, the application gives you room to list six different areas, not three.</p>
<p>im speaking more to inform the rest of the board of the correct info, not to attack you in anyway</p>
<p>thanks jax very useful info. so lets say one of you were an incoming soph transfer , what would your choices be? i have no idea of the dorming situation</p>
<p>you’re welcome, but im not an expert by any means. i only know what i know because im an incoming freshman and made a phone call for my own needs. i dont have the first idea whether things are different for transfers. id recommend calling down there though, the guy i spoke to was pretty helpful. otherwise im sure all the info you’ll need is available on their web site, just take a few minutes and go through it.</p>
<p>@uOFibabe09: Whether people are friendly is important, but has little to do with whether there is excessive binge drinking and other problems.</p>
<p>That said, I didn’t even find the Six-Pack to be that friendly. In my experience, people there tended to be conformist, socially exclusive and unwelcoming towards people who don’t conform. One should realistically take a look at themselves and decide whether they’re the kind of person who fits into this environment.</p>
<p>Nor does it entirely solve the problem if much of the drinking actually happens elsewhere. People who get completely drunk elsewhere still usually go home at the end of the night…guess where that is? And then back in the residence hall, they sometimes do things like vomit on the floor, break things and even get violent.</p>
<p>And unless the plans for the reconstruction have changed, the new residence hall is just the beginning. They’re ultimately going to demolish and reconstruct all of the residence halls one by one. Of course, given the University’s financial situation, all bets are off as to whether it’s even possible to complete the reconstruction.</p>
<p>@boneh3ad: It’s a question of degree. University student will party, but it doesn’t have to get out of control. I still suspect that if the people who are inclined to binge drink are scattered across ISR, PAR, and FAR, there wouldn’t be this huge concentration of them in the Six-Pack/Ikenberry Commons. The concentration is a problem, because that’s part of what causes it to get out of hand.</p>
<p>Again, while you may lessen the degree of drinking in Ikenberry, I highly doubt that the situation will change the way a typical freshman college student has their brain wired. They are always going to use the time to experiment, and that means binge drinking. Trust me, I knew plenty of heavy drinkers in/from ISR too, there just wasn’t such a high concentration of them. If anything, it may cool down a bit in Ikenberry but the other, old six-pack buildings will still be the same and the other halls will have a corresponding rise in binge drinking activity.</p>
<p>In the short term, yes, it could have that effect. That’s a good point.</p>
<p>Are they planning to keep any of the old buildings in the long run? My understanding was that they were planning to demolish all six of the current residence halls to make room for the new halls being built.</p>
<p>As far as I know, they are going to finish one building at a time, and as they finish one, start demolishing another in order to build another new one so that, in time, all the 6-pack buildings are replaced. Of course, if there are still 6 buildings after that, I would be willing to bet that it retains the 6-pack name.</p>
<p>I don’t think that in the long run it will have an effect because after a while, when all of them are built, over half the dorms on campus will then be the nice new ones so you won’t have the “more sophomores” excuse as to why it won’t be so rowdy anymore. It will just be business as usual.</p>
<p>So for the Six Pack, what are they known for?</p>
<p>Like I know Snyder’s the substance free one, hopkins is the “transfer cluster,” and Scott has most of the athletes…but what are the differences among the others (garner, forbes, and weston)?</p>