So…the deadline is today and I’m not really sure if I should apply for it or not. I’m not really too keen about living at SW area though (Not sure if it counts as part of the CHC dorms or not). Any last minute thoughts that you guys could provide before I have to decide to submit an application or not?
The honors Isenberg RAPs are in Sycamore (CHC). The normal non-honors ones are in southwest. Although UMass has called some southwest buildings “honors” they are very different from the CHC dorms (and those non honors raps arent there anyway). I personally enjoyed being in a RAP. My floor ended up becoming very close and we happened to have two fun easy classes. Totally worth it. Although admittedly there was sometimes drama. However as much as I loved my RAP, I would personally never join a RAP in southwest because I know that I personally would be uncomfortable living there. If you do not want to live in southwest, I don’t think the RAP would be worth it. You can still make good connections outside of a RAP/ elsewhere on campus. And still make Isenberg friends in classes and stuff. Tbh I’ve also heard about how weird it is to have “Isenbros” all concentrated on one floor. I can’t really say though since I’ve obviously never experienced it. For all I know, it could be awesome. I know that this message is too late, but I hope you were able to make the best decision for you.
@paws27 Well, I decided to go for it anyways and it seems that I got in. I’m kinda having second thoughts about this however…but at the time, I thought that applying for it and dropping out would be easier than applying late (especially since I still haven’t even join the RAP officially on the Amherst website yet).
However, from what I’ve heard, the ratio of guys to girls around 30:70, so hopefully there won’t be a huge amount of Isenberg guys on my floor. Also, there’s 2 separate Isenberg RAPs (One for leadership and one for a “money management” kind of thing) and I believe they both live in different areas, so that should split it up even more.
With the drama thing, that’s to be expected since you’re in such a tight group, and things like that are bound to happen. O’Hill was honestly my first choice living area. From what I’ve heard, the people and social atmosphere there (fun but not party crazy) would be perfect for me.
Just out of curiosity, what RAP did you join?
Congrats on getting in! Take the time to think about it, and I mean honestly I don’t think you can go wrong either way. It sounds like it could be great! And Orchard Hill is probably my favorite area if you decide otherwise 
(though I admit I haven’t lived there).
My RAP was an honors global learning RAP in CHC. We took an anthropology class together. Pretty different haha.
@paws27 Thanks! Hopefully the noise and partying won’t be too bad at night (the prime reason why I don’t want to live in Southwest). From what I heard, the low rises aren’t as bad as the towers, but I’m not so sure about that. O’Hill’s bigger rooms is also a reason why I’d want to live there besides for the community. Hopefully I won’t regret staying in the RAP. Since my options for roommates have been cut drastically because the Isenberg RAP requires us to dorm with RAP-mates, I’m really hoping that I get someone that I won’t hate. =/
How is CHC btw? How’s the extra work load? Also, are the CHC dorms really that nice? haha. I was planning on applying for it after first semester, but I’m not sure if going for a dual degree (business & engineering) while being in the honors college is a good idea.
@BladeHunter I think you will be okay! I’ve heard that lowrises arent as bad either (plus I think those tend to be on the edges of southwest and not really the heart of it?? though I don’t know if people congregate around there on the way to frats). And I’ve also heard that sometimes southwest is kinda exaggerated, that it’s more that it is so many people concentrated in that one area that it seems louder than it is? And there are loud people all over campus anyway. I work at one of the dining halls in southwest and sometimes when I am walking to/ from work I can hear loud music or people yelling, but sometimes it is pretty quiet!! Granted, I don’t know how it is inside the dorms themselves.
Everyone in my RAP had to live with people from our RAP too, and a lot of the pairings worked out fine. Some roommates ended up becoming good friends (and even roomed together again!), some okay friends, some were more just “I tolerate this person living with me.” There were only a few that honestly didn’t work out. I had quite a few roommate problems my freshman year (I had 3 different roommates … separately, not all at once), but the random roommates were actually great people!! it was living with my “friend” that was the problem!
And the honors college is pretty cool. The workload honestly depends. They have two pieces to the honors college, one being just taking a bunch of honors gen eds, and then the other part is then doing more advanced scholarship like a senior thesis. I’ve only done the gen ed stuff so far and it has been an absolute joke. But that is because the stuff I am interested in isn’t too tough. Like, for honors gen eds I have taken stuff like honors acting class, dragon myth reading class, biology of social issues where we just watched a bunch of animal videos. But if I were to take something like honors chemistry… that would be a much tougher class. I just pick and choose the easy classes haha. And obviously taking actual higher level honors classes and writing a thesis will be much harder. I think you can do the thesis stuff even if you aren’t in honors/ don’t do the silly gen ed stuff.
I think if you are planning on doing a dual degree, it would be tough. I knew a few people on my floor (in the honors college) who were doing engineering and it seemed like there were so many requirements with that alone. it might be hard to add business on top of that and still graduate in 4 years. but i don’t really know much about either of those majors, so I can’t really say.
The honors dorms are pretty nice! They are definitely overrated, they’re still just dorms, and they were kinda built in a hurry too. And the people there are nice, but some people are kinda bougie too. But dang, the location is so great! This past year, I lived in upper central because I didn’t really want to live in a suite or apartment, and wow, the difference from living in the middle of campus to living on the edge of campus. I mean I still loved living in upper central, but if I was in a hurry, it really sucked to add extra travel time. And the air conditioning in CHC is great too, but I mean fans aren’t that bad! I’m trying to decide if i wanna try to live in CHC again next year for the location alone (we already chose housing for next year, but we are allowed to switch over the summer if something new opens up)
Not too crazy about the Southwest area myself. It is generally pretty loud, but I think it actually depends on the floor and floors that surround you. I have a friend who lived in the towers and seemed to get the relative peace that he needed. I’ve also gone to parties on the floor right below him. It really is a gamble with SW. Also, the towers are concentrated right in the center of the complex, not the other way around @paws27 . Regardless, if you’re having second thoughts about SW now though, I recommend you not go for it because you’re gonna find reasons to hate it once you go there. Just stick with the Hill, we’re cooler anyways
So I contacted UMass about seeing if it was possible to drop out of the RAP (still haven’t made my decision yet but I still have time and thought it would be a good idea to find out first). It seems that the Isenberg RAP in particular has a “quota” to meet and a student dropping out of it after being accepted (since it requires an application) causes “complications” with the housing situation for the rest of the students in it (something about people missing roommates or something like that). They did tell me that I could either contact the guy who handles the Isenberg RAP or check to see if I can drop it when I go to NSO, but for now, they can’t do anything. So I guess atm, I’m stuck in the RAP.
@paws27 Thanks for the info! However, since you said you were living in the honors college already, shouldn’t your choices in roommates be limited already? Also, I would think that people in the honors college are a little bit more calm than the rest of campus, since they’re known to be fairly studious. (However, I know that’s not true for everyone).
For the dual degree, I think I might ask them at NSO while registering for classes and see what their opinions are about doing it.
Based off of what you said about the courses you took, I would think that you’d be in a major that’s based in the arts. In that case, wouldn’t living in upper central actually be closer to your classes instead of further away?
@Violet1996 Well, for now, I guess I’m stuck with SW. (Also, I heard that the people who live in O’Hill sometimes have “floor wars” and that it was pretty fun, so +1 for the Hill there too)