Go to JHU/Columbia/UPenn/Yale/Harvard to see the homeless near campuses. There are much bigger problems in this country which cause this huge housing issue, which in turn, cause you to be a victim. Students are not the one who causes this problem and they can’t solve this problem. Honestly, if students need to worry about this, in my experience, those students at JHU/UPenn should worry about this the most. Have you driven across Baltimore/northern Philly recently? You have not seen anything.
I’m surprised that colleges with such healthy endowments as the Ivy have such poorly maintained dorms. This early September, I helped my freshman son move into Forbes, his residential college at Princeton. My one and only disappointment about Princeton was walking into his room and seeing how old and cheap everything was. His bed mattress could be from the same factory contracted to supply prison beds across the nation. Shouldn’t richly endowed colleges have at least a room that’s equal or better than a room you can expect to find in a typical Motel 6? Am I asking too much? What’s the point of being #1 in endowment PER student?
Okay, Forbes is one of the oldest residential colleges that used be Princeton Inn that was acquired by the University with the donation money given by Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr. ’70. It can’t compete with the newer Whitman College. Although not just my son’s room but its library, multi-media room and music practice rooms are all in grungy shape, at least it has a wonderful backyard with a full view of Springdale Golf Club, which immediately conjures up the old comment about Princeton as the “pleasantest country club in America” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. My son recently informed me that Forbes has recently replaced all of their laundry units so at least, too, he doesn’t have to pour a gallon of bleach into the machine for each cycle to kill all the germs that have amassed over the years.
@TiggerDad : Unfortunately your son has to stay in the same residential college for two years. Forbes is far from everything and everyone has to leave for class 15 minutes early in the morning. The shiny new Whitman across the street will remind him how unfair this world is (cost close to 1/4 M per bed when it was built.). But those poor folks stuck at IH at UChicago have a bigger problem. They have to walk 0.7 miles one-way to the closest dinning hall. I am sure everyone likes to exercise and it is good for health. But at least for me, one day in a week, I don’t feel like I want to exercise or I might have high fever due to flu. They are not likely to walk that far on that day, considering that Chicago is not a particularly warm place in the winter months. Maybe the school knows it can earn extra bucks since no one will be willing to walk like that for meals every day.
Yes, my son has to stay with Forbes for two years, but because Whitman is Forbes’ sister college, it’s my understanding that that’s where he’ll be moving to after two years. I do try to look at the situation positively, though (well, what choice do I have?). My son just joined PU Orchestra which rehearses three times a week just across from Forbes in this new arts complex they just built, Lewis Center for the Arts. The Dinky train station is just right next to it, so taking a train ride to Newark Int. Airport or to go to NYC is easier. Yup, he has to take a 15 min walk to his nearest class, but his first class is at 11 a.m., so he doesn’t have to rush through brushing his teeth.
When you mentioned “IH,” is that International House you’re talking about? I ask because I was an IH resident for two years when I was a grad student at Cal-Berkeley. When I last visited UChicago about 2 decades ago, I stopped by its IH.
Sure, but do you know Chicago winter weather? I spent one year on a fellowship long ago in downtown Chicago. During that winter, it was so brutally cold and windy that people had to cling onto a rope around the building to help them make their way. I remember having to close my eyes every few seconds because my eye balls were freezing. After that experience, I told myself I will never live in Chicago. I came up with a new name for that city, too: Sh*tcago.
You should assume that every single college dining service factors in the reality that a percentage of students do not use their full meal allotment when calculating pricing.
TBH, I wonder/worry about whether these fragile kids will ever make it when I read sentences like this, or when I read the thread having to endure forced triples.
@TiggerDad : Yes. I was talking about UChicago’s International House. I think PU Orchestra has an oversea trip next year. All cost covered. I also know someone there who took some kind of geology course last year and had a free European trip to collect some rocks?? There are a lot of advantages to be in Princeton. No good Korean restaurant in the area though. But at least there is WooRi Mart. Brown has several authentic Asian restaurants within walking distance.
OK, I’ll agree that a rope pull around a building against the wind is good exercise. Resistance training. :-j
I’ve skied in some terrible snowstorms in the Sierras, but as Mark Twain MAY have said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” And I’ve spent plenty of summers in SF.
A little tongue-in-cheek, but as @skieurope mentions, we’ve coddled our kids and I’m about as guilty as anyone.
Yup, my first trip to S.F. in summer: I had my shorts and a shirt on, got out of my car to view the Golden Gate Bridge and got right back inside the car, shivering. Mark Twain was right.
Yes, PUO is going to Spain in late January. I heard many more musician/students auditioning for a spot than usual, and I’m sure this all expenses paid has something to do with it. Going to another country for a class is pretty common at Princeton, but the one story that I read about stood out more than anything: for his gold related senior thesis, he asked for gold nuggets and Princeton provided them! I don’t know whether he had to return those nuggets after his thesis or kept them. It’s wild. I’m trying to figure out how my son as a musician can tie his senior thesis with gold nuggets. A golden violin bow?
We visited a Korean restaurant, Soonja’s, less than half a mile away from Forbes because I know my son’s going to miss my cooking of his favorite Korean dishes. I was shocked, though, at the prices. I haven’t heard of WooRi Market. Will check that out.
But, seriously, IH at UChicago doesn’t have a dining facility onsite? IH at Cal-Berkeley not only had its own dining hall but the food was great. The best two years of my life, without any exaggeration, was at the IH. To me, that’s the way all college dorms should be like. The other, regular dorms at Berkeley, however, were like aftermath of Animal House parties.
You can find a current Princeton sophomore from Dallas (Korean) who is very active on vlog. He only took one serious course (econ) in his first semester. He said he is not doing very well with the course. Well, as long as he is not worried about his GPA, he is doing just fine. We are pre-med. Princeton’s senior thesis is time-consuming. GPA is low. No Neurosciences. Old money is hostile to middle class. (eating clubs) Basically the whole campus is a real bubble wrapped in big money. Actually the use of the word campus (Latin for ``field’') to mean the grounds of a college originated at Princeton. If you look at WSJ/THE College Rankings, Princeton is ranked #9, behind Brown#7. Most people probably would be surprised. Not us. Maybe we know too much. Princeton’s engagement ranking of 501-600 is even behind UChicago. For premed, there is no better place than Brown.
@skieurope : I think as long as those people who decided to go to UChicago have " 覚悟(かくご)" (from http://www.romajidesu.com — to prepare oneself (for the worst); to resolve oneself), they will be fine. But this 0.7 miles march to the food seems to be a surprise to a lot of folks. I am sure people from North Korea have no problem adjusting to this kind of march in freezing cold. Not sure about folks from the US.
re: the Cornell student’s video in #116,
There is some angst about on-campus room lottery, no doubt, but what they are missing is that most people find off-campus housing is just better anyway. A lot of such housing is basically adjacent to the campus, and it’s Ithaca, so no huge safety problems to being nominally “off campus” in Collegetown. On the upside: live like adults,No RAs or school rules, throw house parties (central to upperclassmen social life for many), live with your friends, more personal space & common areas if sharing an apartment. I’m not necessarily saying the video maker is a little spoiled, but my D2 managed to find reasonably priced housing via sharing with friends. She liked sharing, better. It was a little down the hill. She walked. Life is tough. Big deal.
As for the dorms, my D2’s was fine. But like everyplace, some are newer than others. Over the last year or so (but not before that IIRC) I have read some complaints about a couple of of the older dorms on CC. [One of the complaints, from a California mom, was that the dorms weren’t air conditioned ! ]They are building more, I understand. My D2 was in hers for a year, then shared an apartment in a house with friends for the rest of her time there. The dorm was fine but she was much happier in her house, which doubled as the center of her social life.
re #130, I think “dominate” the social scene is a bit strong, considering that the majority of students are not part of the fraternity system. “Influential” no doubt. But the upperclassmen who are not part of the fraternity system do their own thing, usually via their off-campus Collegetown houses.
Despite the option to live off-campus, the number of students who are actually granted permission is usually lackluster and it is evident that not everyone who wishes to live off campus gets to do so, this holds especially true for Juniors (as underclassmen aren’t allowed to apply).
Consequentially, the housing shortage is exacerbated. Nicer housing previously designated to upperclassmen (ie. Barbour) has been reassigned to sophomores and often by the end of the housing lottery, there are no rooms left. Students who do not secure housing in the lottery are often put into a random assignment list over the Summer where they are randomly assigned to whatever rooms are left with random roommates. Many common rooms in dorms such as Diman have also been converted into “rooms” to meet the overflow.
Rising juniors have to enter a lottery for permission to go off campus and they can’t sign a lease until they know if they’ll get permission. This makes it a very stressful scramble to grab one of the few decent apartments nearby. Terrible system.
I haven’t read 9 pages of comments. None of them actually.
But I DEFINITELY remember my parents reaction at my dorm room SO long ago. They were VERY underwhelmed! LOL! I think my mom’s reaction was to save me from this mess! Think my dad thought differently.
I didn’t care. I finally had my own space. I was happy. You obviously couldn’t hurt anything. Go for it.
My roommate and I hung a thousand pix of everything we ever loved. We taped up cut outs from magazines. Hung posters. Taped up our favorite quotes. Made a cocoon of sorts. Changed it periodically.
You couldn’t see the cinder block walls when we got done. We loved it.
My mom was less than impressed (she hated it! ). We were happy though…
Ha! I’ve lost track of where this thread is going but if I recall, it started with talking about Brown dorms? I just got back from visiting my daughter who is in a fifth year masters program at Brown, and is now for the second year in a row, living off campus. I took her and a few of her old roommates out to dinner and made a passing reference to the poorly maintained dorms of their undergraduate years, and their beat up off campus apartments and they looked at me, perplexed, for a minute and said they LOVED where they lived, every year, that being together in the thick of things near Thayer or on campus was all that mattered, and that they’d do it all over again if they could, exactly the same way. gouf78, you eloquently described most Brown students’ dorm room experiences. I hope this thread has not caused any perspective Brown students to question applying because the extraordinarily positive student life at at Brown campus truly can’t be tarnished by a few dingy dorms.
