<p>I'm curious: what are the ivy league dorms like?</p>
<p>Actually, ivy dorms in particular aren't important.. i'm mostly just wondering how the top 20 or so colleges that are sitting on hundreds of billions of endowment money choose to furnish their dorms.</p>
<p>Large screen plasma TVs? Plush furniture? Variable lighting? Large roomy interiors with side bathroom attachments? Intricately carved fountains in the center of the room?</p>
<p>Okay, maybe a <em>little</em> overboard on the last one. But what are some of the more prominent features of each personal dorm room? Or is the standard amongst even those colleges the bring-your-own bare-bones white-walled dorm room?</p>
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Large screen plasma TVs? Plush furniture? Variable lighting? Large roomy interiors with side bathroom attachments? Intricately carved fountains in the center of the room?
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<p>Hahaha. Actually, none of the above. H & P have bare-bones dorms, though I believe a few dorms at each have air conditioning (usually for those that require it due to medical reasons only) and hardwood floors (often for the same AC rooms). But anything beyond this is nonexistent, to the best of my knowledge.</p>
<p>Of course, many have great facilities in residential colleges/campus centers, but not in the dorms themselves.</p>
<p>Cornell's are pretty nice. My quad had, just for the four of us, a kitchen, bathroom, shower, study room, living room, fridge, couches, etc... The other dorms were nice too... and that's the only experience I have with Ivy dorms.</p>
<p>Dude, college dorms are college dorms. Just because some colleges are in the top 20 doesn't mean they come furnished like a 5-star hotel, for God's sake.</p>
<p>Well, there appears to be a higher than average number of students in the top schools living on campus compared to lesser known colleges. I figured there was a reason for it. Oddly though, among the ivys, Cornell seems to have one of the smallest amounts of undergrads living on campus.</p>
<p>I was expecting more out of those college dorms, considering how much endowment the colleges are sitting on: say, $20 billion compared to the few million that lesser tier colleges might have. They don't sound too shabby though by any means.</p>
<p>Both dorms are extreme downgrades from my room, probably because of one single reason: they're about the same size as my room, except made for two people. And my closet is bigger.</p>
<p>I was expecting something slightly more posh.</p>
<p>They were impersonal rug-covered linoleum-floored white-washed rooms. A total blank (but livable) canvas. Buuuut, you get more options to customize your room, I suppose?</p>
<p>I'm not sure what you mean, mo24. Everybody at Cornell lives on campus (school-owned property) or, if they choose, immediately adjacent to campus...</p>
<p>I dunno, I lived in the fun, social dorm on south campus but the bathrooms were funky and the rooms, while not horrible, were still kind of crappy.</p>
<p>Unlike Northeastern or BU or other schools which are motivated to attract students with plush accomodations, the Ivy League schools see no problem letting freshmen triple-bunk in the attic of an unrefurbished, bug infested 200 year old frame building with a serious roof leak.</p>
<p>"Unlike Northeastern or BU or other schools which are motivated to attract students with plush accomodations, the Ivy League schools see no problem letting freshmen triple-bunk in the attic of an unrefurbished, bug infested 200 year old frame building with a serious roof leak."</p>
<p>The funny thing is that it cost way more $$$$$ to build facilities in cities like Boston than it does in places like Ithaca (Cornell), Princeton, NJ (Princeton U), Hanover (Dartmouth), New Haven (Yale) or even Providence (Brown). The only ivys that could possibly make excuses for not having nice dorms are Harvard and Columbia. But then again, both have multibillion dollar endowments so cost should'nt really be an issue for them.</p>
<p>And note that NYU's dorms are quite luxurious. Columbia pours far less of its budget into student life in general. An economist friend told me that this was financially dangerous for NYU, which was skirting debt and risking sinkage on the USNWR rankings for the reduction of its endowment, but from an undergraduate's perspective, NYU is often the superior choice in terms of living arrangements and well-funded extracurriculars.</p>
<p>NYU's biggest problem is not debt but rather lack of space to expand. While the school has plenty of $$$ and a huge applicant pool to draw from (over 35,000 apps for per year), things are getting a bit cramped in Greenwich Village.</p>
<p>Things were always cramped in the Village. NYU's expansion woes have more to do with increased resistance to the construction of its dorms, which locals contend "NYU-ify" their neighborhoods. Why this is a problem in an area where many are likely to be NYU grads or of the same type as NYU students is frankly beyond me, but it does generate a lot of heat at the community board meetings.</p>
<p>Maybe NYU needs to buy up more buildings near Wall Street. My girlfriend lived down there her sophomore year and her panoramic view over the Brooklyn Bridge was amazing.</p>
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I'm not sure what you mean, mo24. Everybody at Cornell lives on campus (school-owned property) or, if they choose, immediately adjacent to campus...
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Sorry, you're right - I must have misread that one while I was looking at the various campus statistics.</p>
<p>"Why this is a problem in an area where many are likely to be NYU grads or of the same type as NYU students is frankly beyond me, but it does generate a lot of heat at the community board meetings."</p>
<p>Once you get beyond your college years, you will not want to live in or near a student area. The late night parties and noise gets old fast.</p>