In general, is it more common for college dorms to be co-ed (not necessarily the rooms but the dorm as a whole) or for dorms to be exclusive to one gender or the other?

and in co-ed dorms, are floors split by gender or just rooms?

It really depends on the school, and then, the dorms.

Each school is very different.

1 Like

There are colleges that have women-only dorms, but in general, dorms are mixed gender. From there it varies hugely by college, and dorms within any given college. Some alternate gender by floor or wing, others don’t. Some have single gender bathrooms, and others don’t. Suite dorms (where a group of bedrooms share a central living space and have their own bathrooms) are typically mixed gender dorms but single gender suites- but there are colleges with mixed-gender suites.

Coed is much more common though occasionally there may be a dorm with single sex floors.

Really varies by school. Both my kids were in coed dorms with single sex floors freshman year. After that it was coed floors with single sex suites.

D20 attends a school that employs what they call “gender inclusive housing”. Their description is students can live on campus with whomever they choose, regardless of biological sex, gender, gender identity, or gender expression. Her floor last year was mixed gender floor with 3 bathrooms (one communal male, one communal female, and one individual). This year she lives in a suite that is mixed, mostly because a gay friend felt more comfortable living with females. Options exist for pretty much anything.

2 Likes

So far I’ve had kids at 4 different universities and 6 dorms, all were co-ed floors, single sex bathrooms except for 1 which has wet core bathrooms.

I think this is great and wish more schools would do I this.

What is a “wet core” bathroom? Is that a typo?

2 Likes

I’m going to guess co-ed is more common. All my dorms 30+ years ago were co-ed - initially by floor and then by room.

Shared sink space with individual 4 sided areas for showers and toilets.

In my day, they were called co-ed bathrooms. :rofl:

I ended up visiting over 25 colleges between both kids. They ranged from small LACs to large state universities. Coed dorms were by far the most common, but there were a couple of colleges with all women’s dorms or all women’s floors. I don’t recall any colleges with all male dorms or floors, though I’m sure they exist.

Bathrooms were mostly single sex, but I think it’s more and more common for there to be a mixed sex bathroom somewhere in the dorm. My D’s college let students vote on if they wanted mixed bathrooms or not.

Combination at my D’s school too. She lived in a “co-ed by room” dorm her first and third year, and an all female dorm sophomore year. Lots of options.

My D22 is looking at 5 colleges. 2 are women’s colleges, so there’s that. Her #1 school, a small LAC, has pretty much every configuration of dorms including all male and all female as well as themed dorms like LGBTQ and Eco-living and Wellness (substance free).