<p>Like Clendenator wrote, some schools have residential-y community options (I’m thinking about the Alice B. Cook House at Cornell, for example) even most of the campus is not set up in “residential colleges.”</p>
<p>I like Chicago’s house system a lot. Houses are subdivisions of larger dorms, and the house is governed by a Resident Head (grad student). House members are encouraged to eat together in their dining hall (at their house table) and play on intramural sports teams together, and share lounge spaces and traditions. Chicago kids tend to move off campus after a year or two in housing, but for a first or second-year who has yet to carve himself or herself into the social scene, the house system is indispensable.</p>