Northwestern University is apparently out of freshmen housing options for incoming class. My daughter is very disappointed. They can offer upperclassmen dorm, international dorm, and faith based floor. None are something she identifies with. Has a roommate. Got unlucky with lottery number/draw. Disappointed that they didn’t plan for this - college experience freshmen year seems pretty important. Suggestions?
Did they over-enroll?
College is about experiences, for sure, so maybe International Dorm would be interesting?
The international dorm doesn’t sound awful, I know someone who lives in a similar type of themed housing. But if she really would rather not live there, maybe she could email the student life director or whoever is in charge of student housing at NU and ask about a housing waitlist? No guarantees she would still be with the roommate, though.
Carnegie Mellon overenrolled this year and assigned reduced-rate triples (larger doubles converted into triples, ~$5,000 instead of $8,500). Not ideal, but better than temp housing in a lounge for half the semester.
I don’t know about NW specifically but a lot of times the upperclassmen dorms are nicer. My D would have loved to be in one of the upperclassmen dorms at her school last year!
Huh. Elder is all-freshmen now. I didn’t know they started a faith-based dorm. What’s wrong with ISRC? No other residential colleges open?
The same thing happened to two of my son’s friends. The disappointment is understandable.
My suggestion, aside from waitlisting and talking to current students for their opinion, is to plan on exploring, then joining a couple of RSOs. My daughter and her roommate were unlucky in their freshman dorm assignment, but it actually may have contributed to her becoming more involved on campus. Instead of hanging out in their dorm room and watching Netflix, my daughter found a great student organization that was both fun and looked really good on her resume/linkedin page. It, along with her club sport, helped her in interviews.
I wish your daughter well.
My recent NU graduate didn’t live in an “all-freshmen” dorm, As far as he knows, only Elder is the only all-freshmen dorm. His dorms for the first two years were mixed classes. I think it is great to be mixed in with upperclassmen who can give all sorts of advice. Does your daughter have a freshman roommate? Plenty of other opportunities to meet fellow classmates, even before classes start.
BTW, even ISRC will be majority American (not that surprising since around 90 percent of the undergraduate student body is) and considering that part of college is expanding your worldview, I don’t see the drawback of learning about other cultures and meeting people from other places in the world. And yes, the vast majority of freshmen don’t go to the freshmen dorm. Meeting students in other classes is a plus, IMO.
@Knittergirrl I didn’t realized CMU over-enrolled this year. My D goes there. I can’t imagine making a triple out of her freshman year dorm! When I was a freshman many moons ago, there was also a housing shortage at my college and we were crammed in like sardines!
@TiggyB62 Yes, there are over 100 extra freshmen this year. They’re making the triples in Shirley, Mudge, and I think Donner. I’m unsure whether there are still students stuck in temp housing, though.
As someone who lived through a double converted to a triple my freshman year, I would avoid that option at all cost. My D switched dorms her second semester of freshman year, moving from an all-freshman to mixed class dorm. She loved the mixed class dorm.
I would go with the upperclassman.
The only “upperclassmen dorm” I can think of is Foster-Walker. Not very social. Upperclassmen like it because they can get singles.
ISRC is a much better option, IMO.
I agree. Go with ISRC. The themes of the res colleges at Northwestern are not so heavy-handed and pervasive that you have to be into them. She’ll be fine.
Thanks for your info. Yes, she does have a roommate and knew that with her poor lottery number, the all freshman dorm would be unavailable. What I’m referring to is actually a virtual lack of suitable housing (even in the mixed dorms) for a Freshman when the number is called. She was turned down at one of the residential colleges also. Interfaith/Substance Free and International are her choices now. Yes, they must have offered more spaces than they had room for on campus. Kind of like the airlines… thanks for your replies and your suggestions.
There’s only one freshman dorm (which obviously only a small fraction of freshmen can be in). All others are all classes (mostly freshmen and sophomores in most of them besides Foster-Walker).
NU guarantees campus housing for all incoming freshmen, but obviously, the last few kids likely won’t get their first several choices and will simply end up where there is space available.
Still don’t understand what’s not suitable about ISRC.
Substance-free will be quiet, at least.
My cred: I’m an alum and parent of a recent grad. Seriously, don’t overthink it. You do not have to be into international relations; the theme does not pervade the dorm anywhere near as much as you are envisioning it does. My S got his third choice, PARC (public affairs), and liked it so much he stayed there soph year. Seriously. It will be like a regular dorm; they may just have more lectures and gatherings with international themes.
Thanks for the info. Purple Titan, you asked what was found unsuitable about the International Relations Residential College. I guess it’s that it’s a residential college at all… and themed towards a non-interest. Kind of like putting someone who is interested in music in an engineering themed residence, without the choice of going generic/vanilla/wide open/exploratory. That’s all. But perhaps it’s more cross categorical than not and there’s no need to worry, the theme is in name only… as others have reported. Can’t really say. Must be a reason that’s the last dorm with any space… perhaps it’s time to lose the theme but that’s up to Northwestern and change happens slowly.
Anyone can choose to either participate or not participate in res college activities. If she doesn’t participate, then it’s just a regular dorm. And college is a time and place to explore and get exposed to areas one wasn’t interested in or knew about before. I personally see nothing wrong with a music major being in an engineering dorm. I was a science & later CS major in the arts res college. As for the lack of popularity of ISRC, I’m not sure it says much. That American teenagers are in general insular? That wouldn’t be terribly shocking news, I reckon. Physically, it was better than some of the regular dorms when I was there (though obviously many have been remodeled since then).
I’d love a sub-free dorm for my son.