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Outrageous though CC’rs may consider it, I bet it happens a lot. Parents can be so competitive about their children, and why would that stop at the entrance to the suite/dorm room?</p>
<p>^Proudpatriot. You don’t have to sit around all day. You dump your stuff. You leave your roommates a note your cellphone number on the pile of stuff if they don’t have it already. “Hi, I’m out picking up my sheets. Give me a call when you get here. If anyone wants to move in now, I’d love to have the top bunk in the double room on north side of the room, if that’s a problem we can discuss it when I am back.” You go do shopping if you need to. And the kids spend the evening sorting out the room. It’s not the parent’s problem.</p>
<p>I just don’t think people should be sitting around waiting for others. Perhaps you didn’t read the last sentence of my post. I think the young folks should work things out on their own. I just don’t think they need to sit around and wait for each other.</p>
<p>My son will be moving in a week before the other freshmen get there. Luckily, his room mate will also be moving in the same day (they are both athletes). His room mate will be driving from 2 hours away. We will be in town the night before. I doubt that his parents will want to get as early a start as we will. Why should they sit there all day twiddling their thumbs while we are at Target? It doesn’t make any sense to me.</p>
<p>One thing that is nice is that the freshman football players have created a Facebook page so that they can communicate with each other prior to move in day.</p>
<p>My son’s roommate arrived before he did, so when we arrived, his stuff was already in the room. Some of his stuff was piled on one of the beds, but the bed wasn’t made up. We assumed that he preferred that bed, and made up the other one. It didn’t really matter in that case–but that might be one approach to this–the early arrival can stake out his preference, but without too much finality.</p>
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<p>Not in my experience as a student. Same price, whether you lived in a lovely suite in a historic building with a private bedroom for each occupant and a living room and en-suite bath (seniors could get this), a single in a cinderblock, a one-room double with a shared bath on the hall, etc.</p>
<p>Interesting, DeskPotato. In my experience there were different costs for different dorms, and a single/double differential, also.</p>
<p>I do not like the idea of having to wait around for others to show up to pick a bed/closet/desk/etc, especially when the differences can be hours or even days!!! </p>
<p>On the other hand, I have NEVER liked the idea of people “calling out” the best of anything. I would “correct” other people’s kids who I had to drive around who would come to my car (or my home) and yell out, “I call the front seat” or “I call the last piece of cake,” or whatever. The idea that someone should make it a priority to “call out first” in order to get the best whatever is just crude and rude. Who raised these kids???</p>
<p>Maybe it was my education with nuns, but we would have been corrected quite promptly about the sins of selfishness if we had behaved that way. And, my mom raised us to ALWAYS offer the preferred situation to the other person. ALWAYS. </p>
<p>Again, if you have to choose, choose fairly so that everyone gets some “best” things. If one desk is bigger or a closet is bigger, don’t go choosing all the best things which would be a shout-out to your roomie(s) that you’re a selfish piggy.</p>
<p>My husband and I attended the same school so we didn’t know that there were schools that had choices of meal plans, differently-priced housing options, etc, because we had the pay-one-price model in our experience.</p>
<p>I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that several of the schools my daughter was considering had differential pricing based on specific building and room type. And even more pleased when she chose a school where almost all the rooms are more or less identically sized and furnished, and tripled students pay substantially less than those in doubles. (Some kids choose a triple to save money.) The one-price-for-all model when the accommodations are so variable really does not appeal to my basic sense of fairness.</p>
<p>*Quote:
So…in the suites where the “grabby” ones get the single(s) and the others are left to the double(s), is the housing cost the same? That doesn’t seem right. If singles are chosen/assigned officially, then they usually cost more, right?
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<p>Odd…a single room SHOULD cost more and should have been reserved in advance…not chosen on move in day. </p>
<p>Are some colleges clueless about instilling a more harmonious morale amongst roomies??? </p>
<p>I don’t think we’d do this as a family with 3 kids, right? We wouldn’t buy a home knowing that one child will get a single and the other two children will share without some kind of prior decision based on reason (the only girl gets the single, the oldest gets the single, the 2 boys share, the kids will rotate on an annual basis, etc). I don’t think any of us would show our 3 kids the new home and give the single to the rude one who calls it out first!!!</p>
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Interesting–I have the opposite reaction. I wouldn’t prefer a college where the richer students are able to get nicer dorms. I guess it matters how big the differences in quality really are.</p>
<p>A little off-topic, but related to mom2collegekids’ post about not letting people “call out” the best of everything: When my dad and uncles were young, my grandmother apparently got tired of having the two older boys fighting over the largest pieces of cake, slicess of pie, cookies . . . So she baked a batch of muffins, but one she filled with crumpled-up paper. It was by far the biggest, and sufficiently coated in batter that when it was baked, it couldn’t be distinguished from the others, except by size. Probably not a cure-all, but . . .</p>
<p>Interesting–I have the opposite reaction. I wouldn’t prefer a college where the richer students are able to get nicer dorms. I guess it matters how big the differences in quality really are.</p>
<p>Ha! Considering that richer kids have more college options PERIOD. And, once living on campus isn’t mandatory (sometimes after frosh year), the richies can move into the palatial apts, what difference does it make? Heck, and school that allows frosh to bring cars will then have BMWs parked in the dorm parking lots for others to envy. </p>
<p>I see no problem with colleges having a variety of “levels” of housing. those on a budget might pick the standard doubles (or even the triples!) to save money, while those without a tight budget can choose private rooms, suites, etc. This is college, not middle school. Adults understand that some can afford better things. That’s real life.</p>
<p>In our home, we have any easy way to resolve the proble of choosing the best piece. One kid gets to slice the piece of cake, the other gets to choose his piece first. Believe me, the slicer will be very careful to cut the pieces evenly.</p>
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<p>At some colleges I’ve visited, the nicer dorms tended to be reserved for upperclassmen/honors students. The idea is that some privileges come with academic seniority/excellence…not the ability to pay. </p>
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<p>When it comes to meals, the common practice in my family is for the person who wants the last piece to first ask “Does anyone else want it” and only taking it if no one else calls for it. If they call for it, they get it…especially if it is a relative from the older generation or a guest.</p>
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That’s how I feel about it, too. I certainly recognize that rich people can always get more, but one thing I valued about my college experience is that everybody was on pretty much equal footing as students–we all lived in the same dorms, atein the same dining halls, etc. You really couldn’t tell whether somebody was rich or on a need-based scholarship–especially since most people wore jeans and t-shirts most of the time.</p>
<p>I really, really hate the differential pricing. I think that if you want a unified student body you make everyone get a full meal plan, everyone has the same chances in the room lottery and you try to put in safeguards to make it even out (at Tufts you choose lottery numbers for the next three years and if you have a bad number one year it’s supposed to get evened out by a good one another year.) Creating a system where the rich kids get better rooms is just wrong.</p>
<p>My D’s school has the option of single rooms which cost more in some dorms but less than doubles in other dorms. My D is going to have a single in a primo dorm this year because she will be a junior and most upperclassmen move off campus. Also because it’s an honors dorm. She could have an apartment or a double in a different dorm that would cost more than her single. The single is more expensive than doubles in her actual building. So I guess it works out.</p>
<p>ate in the same dining halls</p>
<p>But that’s not really true. It’s like having to take the bus in high school. Yes, the rich kids can take the available bus (meal plan), but they don’t HAVE to use it. They can drive their nice cars to school (or eat at the off-campus hangouts even with a fully paid meal plan.) And the result is that the poored kids take the bus (eat the req’d dining plan), while the affuent have choices.</p>
<p>And, frankly, I don’t care how “equal” you try to make college, it isn’t equal. Some of you may remember the mom who posted last year. Her D went to a top school with full need met. Her D was very angry at the mom because they couldn’t afford to buy and do all that her more affluent classmates were doing or wearing. Even study abroad experiences can require a level of affluence sometimes. </p>
<p>I can see that at “full need met” schools, housing is probably very similar for each school year…such as all Frosh live in The Commons and all sophs live in The Lodges. After all, if you have a full need student, the issue of pricey housing vs less housing isn’t really going to apply. </p>
<p>It also makes sense at the smaller schools to have similar housing options. At very large schools, it probably isn’t going to happen.</p>
<p>Don’t have much to add to this but I agree with other posters who said to look on school’s website to see if they have diagrams of the rooms. This helped me out greatly when it came to discussing layout with my roommate through email.</p>
<p>I moved in first because my parents and I came a day before move in. Spent the night with relatives, and moved in during the morning. Since I had already discussed with roommate the layout I knew how to set up my side. I did pick my side, and bed. University had a rule that whatever furniture was on your side you had to keep, but I flipped mattress without her. I then left to give her family some space because I was unsure if her whole family was coming or just parents.</p>
<p>So I guess there is an advantage to being first, but I think it depends on the situation. Both sides of my room were identical along with closets, and furniture.</p>
<p>Totally equal maybe not. But over 90% of Harvard lives in the residence halls and as far as I could tell most of them ate nearly all their meals there. Each house has it’s own dining room and the whole system is designed to make students want to eat and socialize with each other. Having experienced the residential college system compared to what my two kids have had, I vote for what I had any day.</p>