Parents Shock at Dorm Condition

Great socio - economic divide with housing at Brown . Full -pay ( domestic and foreign ) undergraduates rush to move to off- campus housing which is controlled by a few local landlords. Some full - pays have parents pay for their required sub - par dorm room fee and live off-campus . Living off- campus can be expensive, you pay upfront in most cases but what are you going to do ? Zero sense of community since Brown hasn’t built any dorm rooms in 25 years or more. In short, you are on your own.

Visited Weds. Asked our tour guide about the dorms. Said they’d never heard of any issues and also that you don’t choose a college based on dorms.

Told me what I needed to know, though I suspect not what they thought they were telling me.

My daughter is a recent graduate and lived in the dorms for three of her four years. I saw her room each year and they were all fine. The worst issue she had was that freshman year the radiator wouldn’t turn off so she had to have the window open all winter.
I don’t doubt any of the horror stories I have read above, and the University should be called to task on these situations.

I would have been more impressed if the tour guide had met the issue head on. To say you’ve never heard of any issues with student housing is a bit unrealistic to my mind.

@Jon234 : The freshman dorm is fine with us. I guess it would be fine for most commoners. I have heard dorms are uneven. The sophomore dorm my child has secured is also fine. Some sophomore dorms will be renovated this summer. People who are looking for a great dorm should go somewhere else, preferably Princeton. If you do decide to go to Princeton, make sure your math is good, really good. Otherwise, expect some “humbling” experiences.

If you only knew how ‘common’ we are. Alas, I won’t be going anywhere, I’m an old man who never went to college. I could list my common qualifications here for you but that’s not what this is about and I never really went in for that inverted snobbery thing at the best of times.

Genuinely pleased for you that your child’s dorm situation is working out well.
I’m sure my kid will make an informed decision based on multiple factors by the end of the month.
It will be her decision not mine.
Given it appears to be, or has been, a well known issue at Brown, I am a bit surprised our tour guide didn’t address it in the way that you have. We’ve been on lots of tours when renovations to dorms has been mentioned.
I’m sure there’ll be lots of humbling experiences along the way.

“The state of the dorms” would be a great question to ask administrators at ADOCH. But I think it is very possible for a student to say he or she has not heard of any problems with dorms because kids don’t focus on that kind of thing as much.

I agree with @ciervo My son’s current room has terrible peeling paint and the common bathrooms are gross. He loves his single (its a nice size), the walls are covered with his stuff so he doesn’t care about the paint. He has all his friends in the dorm and they are all disgusting together, so it doesn’t really register to him that its gross. His rooms the first two years were much better - even nice - but he doesn’t see the difference. A group of his friends got a house for next year, but he decided to stay in the dorm for convenience rather than move with them.
My D had 3 on campus rooms which also varied in quality. All she remembers is whether she liked her roommates or not. Nothing could be more disgusting than the off campus house she moved into senior year. I forbade her from ever living like that again. It didn’t really bother her and her friends though. She seems to have a higher dirt tollerance than I do.

@Jon234 : Sorry for the misunderstanding. We are commoners and we feel very comfortable at Brown. I see your kid is admitted to Yale. Yale’s residential college is just like Princeton’s. Great castles but quite a large number of people are depressed there. Yale’s graduation requirement is quite a bit heavier than Brown’s. During spring break we have good knowledge exchanges with my kid’s friends’ parents – MIT’s Nobel chemistry prize winner is the worst teacher; Princeton’s math is so difficult that even those geniuses from my kid’s HS are having a hard time, etc. People are all curious about Brown since my child was the only one accepted to Brown last year. Different school has different culture and different focus. Brown’s focus is undergrad. I would say we have 75% success rate getting good professors so far. Good luck to you and your daughter.

No misunderstanding to apologize for. I know my kid, she’s in her room now with the swiffer. The open curriculum was the draw at Brown. A massive draw. Still is. Like I said, trying to make an informed decision. I’m not pulling for Brown or Yale in this tussle by the way. I like LACs.

I’d be a bit concerned about that peeling paint depending on how old it is, irrespective of the posters covering it.

Given our experience on other college tours I think it’s reasonable to think a tour guide might have knowledge of the conditions of housing.

My daughter is a senior at Brown and graduating this year–then staying one more for her masters. She’s a pretty fastidious kid, so the under maintained common areas of the dorms she lived in as an underclassman bothered her, but didn’t faze most of her friends. Her fussiness meant that her dorm rooms always looked lovely once all her stuff was in them–and were always roomy enough. She’s living off campus this year and the rundown common areas of the dorms now look mighty fine by comparison. I’m glad her priorities are clearly elsewhere. She has loved everything about Brown–especially the rigor of her concentration and the fact that she could launch into it right from the start as a freshman, without general ed requirements. (And she’s explored plenty of fun courses outside her comfort zone, too–and has had only one “less than stellar” professor her entire time there.) As for the “Yale castles” mentioned above @nrtlax33 @Jon234 , my husband, sister and I are all Yale grads. Yup–it was pretty cool having leaded glass windows, hard wood floors, window seats and fireplaces in our door rooms, but OUTSIDE those rooms, I think the focus on undergrads is unsurpassed at Brown–and Providence is a way cooler town than New Haven.

Brown administration and admissions go to great lengths to hide the true state and shortage of on -campus housing past freshman year.

I am not aware of any shortage of on-campus housing at Brown after freshman year? My daughter chose to live off campus senior year to be with her friends in a house. But there were plenty of on campus options.

The full pay kids move out of the dorms as soon as they are permitted . Who can blame them ?

Fact check: All current undergraduate students wishing to live off-campus must apply for off-campus permission by completing an Off-Campus Application and submitting it to the Office of Residential Life by the required deadline.

See https://reslife.brown.edu/offcampus/

So @NewCentury , do you think there is a shortage of on-campus housing if people need approval to live off-campus?

Also, you’re generally allowed to live off campus for 1 of your 4 years.

Seniors are always permitted to live off campus, and some number of juniors are given permission as well.

A growing number of full pay juniors convincing their parents to pay the off campus rent to get away from the condition of the dorms. Residential Life receives off campus housing fee.

Perhaps my son is not very picky but he’s been fine with housing. Keeney first year, Wriston second year, Slater this year and 315 Thayer next year in a Quad with individual rooms and a common area. Admittedly it’s not luxury living but I would consider them average quality for college dorms.

I’m not sure what has happened here. Several posts I responded to have disappeared. I thought posts on this forum were permanent.