Hi All. Can anyone share details about the dorm rooms for first year female students? I have searched for videos on YT and while I see footage of the different residence halls, I cannot find any videos showing the inside of an actual room.
Are there any single or double rooms with a private bathroom? Are the beds elevated, bunk, or traditional? Are the rooms spacious and modern?
Dorm rooms are different per the dorm. For example, in some of the older dorms there are rooms with a private bathroom. In general, people use the bathrooms in their own section. Beds are usually elevated because of space issues in dorms, however, in some dorms this is not necessary because they are newer and have the space. As many of these comments suggest, each dorm is different and cannot be easily described. I’d say that there are a good amount of dorms that are new and have enough space. If you have any disability that requires any extra amenities the university will gladly help you get the accommodation.
There are pictures of dorm rooms and floor plans on Notre Dame housings web page but they do very per dorm. You have to click on each individual dorm to see the pix.
Thanks for the reply. Can you please send me the link to view the pics of the dorm rooms and floor plans? I see one exterior picture for each residence hall but that’s about it.
The trick for finding pictures of the interior of the dorms is to use the “wayback machine” on the internet. The current pictures are fairly limited, as you note. If you can locate the Notre Dame housing website from about ten years ago there is lots of good stuff there, including interior pictures of dorm rooms and common rooms. You can even find floor plans, although those may be out of date, depending on the dorm. Of course all the pictures will be about ten years old.
I can’t recall the exact website url that I searched on the wayback machine but I was able to get a good feel of what the various dorms were like using this approach a year ago. Start with nd.edu and work your way down to the residential life page.
I expect Notre Dame made the decision at some point to pull this info off their website.
However, as another poster indicated, all dorms are different (some were built almost 100 years ago and some are currently being built), although most if not all have modular furniture allowing bunking of beds, a desk, and a “closet” (which is actually an armoir). I believe (but am not sure) that the majority of residence halls utilize common bathrooms and private bathrooms (or bathrooms shared between two rooms) is the exception. It could be the case that this is not true for the newest dorms, but I am not sure. I think about 30-40% of the men’s dorms are air conditioned. I assume a similar percentage of the women’s dorms are. But that is really only important for the first two to three weeks of the fall term.
Some may feel the older dorms, which are many of the dorms at Notre Dame, lack the posh and comforts of some more modern dorms at other schools and that some rooms may be on the small side. But in my view the community feel (and the history and architecture) of them more than makes up for that. Bring an area rug, a dorm refrigerator, a TV, and a futon to jazz up the room (or buy them when you get there) and it will start feeling homey real fast.
Congrats on your daughter’s admission. She will love Notre Dame.
@Trinity2016 Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. I was surprised that there is such limited information with regard to the dorms. It would have been nice to see an updated room vtour from an ND student(s) as you see with many other college students. I will follow your tips and see if I can find any pics/videos. We are excited about our daughter’s admission to ND and looking forward to visiting the campus.
Most dorms have their own website and if you look up each one they might have more recent pictures of the rooms. I know for my dorm they had pictures on their website
@StarrMama Also, some ND Residence Halls have posted tour videos, this is an example for Welsh Fam, one of the women’s halls on campus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zvn74zX8Tk
There are no First-Year dorms at Notre Dame, every ND Hall intentionally has First-Year, Sophomore, Junior and Senior residents. Notre Dame has a three year on-campus residence requirement, residence halls are a very important part of Notre Dame’s personal development mission and support structure for its students. Students typically stay at the hall they were assigned as First-Year students (there is a transfer system) until graduation or until they may move off-campus for their senior year at Notre Dame.
As small bonus, a quite nice video campus tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSCnJZbqk3M
@StarrMama - Also, keep in mind that dorm assignments are totally random beyond gender. So, don’t get your heart set on a specific dorm. Your Hall will become your new family away from home.
I think the reason for limited pics of rooms is that there is so much variability dorm to dorm and in many cases within the same dorm. My son is in Stanford, one of the older dorms. The double rooms are pretty tight. They have a sink in their room. The shower and toilets are down the hall. Each hallway is called a “Section”. In my son’s section, there are two bathrooms.
In his section, there are also quad rooms and one six man. The six man is highly sought after, so usually taken by juniors. The six man is actually 3 separate rooms (2 are used for beds and a large one in between for social gatherings, a tv, a sofa or two, etc).
I believe that once dorm assignments come out, each dorm sends a “Welcome” video to students assigned to that dorm and there will be some footage of rooms. That happened last year, at least.
Younger D is in one of the newer dorms, and the bathroom is a shared bathroom down the hall. I didn’t know any dorms had private bathrooms.
Older D lived in an older dorm. It was definitely not the Ritz! Her first year room was on the 4th floor, had slanted ceilings, the building had no elevator and no AC. She loved her dorm - it had lots of singles also. The kids make it work.
@hpcsa and @suzy100, do you remember about when (May, June, July) they release dorm assignments? Thanks
@RFM1617 Our daughter, now a sophomore student, received the following e-mail message (excerpt) end of May, after signing her housing contract:
“You will receive an email notice sent to your Notre Dame email address when assignments are available in early July. All first-year students will receive and have access to the assignment and roommate information at the same time. Please note, housing assignments are not confirmed unless received directly from the Office of Housing.”
Hope this information is of help!
Thank you @hpcsa…you all are the most supportive group on CC
I appreciate all of the responses to my inquiry. I was able to find some old pics of the dorms as well as some up to date videos that give quick glimpses of some dorm rooms. The rooms do look pretty tight with little floor space. On the bright side, it was nice to see the sense of community that was shown in the video footage of some residence halls.
@StarrMama - the “community” feel is definitely a HUGE thing! My DS’s hall has a great family feel. It is dramatically different from my other DS experience at a public university in their dorms. For my ND DS, it has been a great fit.
The rooms are tight, but it works.
I would add that college dorm rooms are, well, college dorm rooms. While some of the schools we visited had brand new and relatively “luxurious” accommodations for the students, this is not the norm - and particularly not with a university with a long historical heritage. These are kids (ok…young adults) and they will cherish their own space and make the most of it. My son lives in Knott Hall, a relatively newer dorm (1988 - 30 years old!). No doors are ever locked and many doors remain open until bedtime. There is ample public space for studying (study rooms) and for just hanging out (lounges, etc.). I would totally concur with @usma87 that residential life at ND is much more about the community of the RESIDENCE HALL rather than life in a DORM ROOM.
Residence Halls are assigned randomly (though I have heard there is an effort to concentrate STEM women a little bit) so no need to get too concerned about what lies ahead now. At ND, if you ask any student what the best residence hall is, they will invariably say “Mine”. That is all you need to know about residence hall life at ND!