I am confused about which dorm is right for me. I like to have fun and hang with my friends. I’m an athlete who isn’t into drugs and heavy drinking so the crazy party animal rap of sharp and Monroe at first had me thinking Butler ( as Honors Program student I heard I get first crack there) but heard that dorm is too much the other extreme. Thoughts?
Go Butler. Higher end students have a better time in college than you might realize at this juncture. The social pressure and the level of conversation in that dorm will be better for your academic and intellectual development and the self-discovery that is so great about college. Needless to say, Monroe and Sharp would not be a 24-7 bacchanalian orgy: your class is comprised of 72% of people in the top 10% of their class, high ACTs, and who were leaders and major contributors in their high schools. They are probably thinking about their futures every bit as much as the people in Butler. That being said, considring the relative odds of being distracted at least some of the time, I would probably go Butler if you think you would be too tempted to distraction in Monroe or Sharp.
There are the suite-style dorms you can apply to get into, Wall and Greenbaum. These might represent the compromise between those two “extremes”, although I agree with NJDad68 that they aren’t really as extreme as it is commonly painted to be. I have known many DHS winners and other Honors Program students that purposely chose Monroe and Sharp and did extremely well in school. For example, I know one that went into her freshman year wanting med school and in fact is now attending Columbia med. Another was a young man that graduated in Chemical Engineering and is now doing well at Google after several years with an energy company. In fact, I can only think of one example that I would say truly struggled to balance social life with academics and had a terrible first semester. He moved to Butler second semester at the insistence and intervention of his parents, worked with the success coaching center at Tulane and got completely back on track and is now a junior in good standing.
Just remember that with the suite-style dorms you are responsible for cleaning your own bathrooms. Just a heads up about that. FWIW, my D liked being in Butler just fine. I would also add that while your social life and hanging with friends might initially be influenced by your dorm situation, in general it is much more about how much you put yourself out there to make friends from other areas such as class, clubs, and sports.
You need to go visit the dorms this spring. All dorms have good and bad but you need to see the actual room setup, common areas, and people to know which would be better for you. We did this and the visit made the difference on where he wanted to live and he loves his dorm and he is a DHS Honors student and doing awesome in Wall.