<p>Anyone have any information about the pros and cons of life in Parrish? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I can't think of any real cons for Parrish other than the obvious - single sex - the walk up the stairs to the 3rd or 4th floor. </p>
<p>It is a gorgeous old building that has just been renovated. The rooms are large with tall ceilings, wood floors, etc. You can't get more convenient. Right next to the library, the snack bar, and right next to most of the academic buildings. It's also the closest dorm to the dining hall.</p>
<p>It's a multipurpose building. The center section has student lounges, mail room, admissions office, etc. The first and second floors have administrative offices -- the President, Provost, Finance, Deans, Student services, etc. The third and fourth floors have dorm rooms.</p>
<p>At least on the female side, Parrish is known as one of the quieter, more studious dorms. Upperclassmen who like a quiet dorm without a big social scene often pick into Parrish, even if they don't care about the single sex part of the deal. It looks like the upperclass students will be mostly seniors plus a few blocks of sophmores in doubles. It appears that Parrish takes too high a lottery number for juniors.</p>
<p>I'm not sure about the men's side. I've heard that some years it is a popular draw with the sports teams, but I don't know if that's still current fashion or not.</p>
<p>I LOVED living in Parrish my freshman year. Though some of my hall mates were upset about the hall not being adequately social, I spent so little time in my hall that it wasn't a big deal. However, the west side of the third floor (the guys' side) actually had a number of parties throughout the semester. Also, the 4th floor 'hump' as it's called is a great study/party/gathering/cooking place for students of all classes.</p>
<p>But, most important, is Parrish's LOCATION. As Interesteddad pointed out, the hall is on top of all of the administration's offices, so taking care of add/drop, mail, law/med counseling is really easy. Furthermore, the hall is THE closest hall to students' classes, which facilitates getting up 5 minutes before class and still (barely) getting there on time. Parrish dorms are just very convenient to most everything academic. The building is adjacent to McCabe library, Kohlberg (houses many of the social sciences, languages, and coffee bar), and 'Tarble' (houses the bookstore, and a snack bar). </p>
<p>
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It is a gorgeous old building that has just been renovated.
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Though the first two floors were recently renovated (note that the first two floors house the administration and admissions office... the school knows how to advertise itself well), the top two floors, where students dwell, were not, meaning that they could certainly use some improvement (the walls weren't sanded before they were repainted that left unpleasantly uneven walls, there are some gaps at the top and bottom of the doors to let through sound, the bathrooms could use an update, and other similar flaws). It is these flaws that make us wonder about the ways in which the endowment is spent, especially when our peer institutions, like Amherst, are just finishing complete remodeling of their dorms.</p>
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It's also the closest dorm to the dining hall.
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</p>
<p>Based on the effort it takes to get up that infelicitously large hill, I'd actually say that Wharton is closer. That hill up to Parrish is brutal :D.</p>
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I've heard that some years it is a popular draw with the sports teams, but I don't know if that's still current fashion or not.
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Based on my experience, that's no longer the case.</p>
<p>In closing, Parrish is convenient to most everything, has a great first floor lounge for post-2am studying :o, has an elevator (and 6 flights of stairs, in case you want variety), has a piano (albeit poorly tuned), is convenient to the administration (though certainly the admin doesn't bother students), and promotes interaction between Swat's different graduating classes.</p>
<p>Are you a guy or a girl? In what room will you be living?</p>
<p>The renovatons included quite a bit of work to the student dorm areas, including -- if I recall -- installation of the fire sprinkler system.</p>
<p>Parrish and Wharton are not the dorms for "new". The choice for that would be the New Dorm (Alice Paul) and the New New Dorm (David Kemp).</p>
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The renovatons included quite a bit of work to the student dorm areas, including -- if I recall -- installation of the fire sprinkler system.
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</p>
<p>Hahaha, well given that I was living on Parrish W, where all the previous fires had started, I guess those renovations were good. :D</p>
<p>Kudos to interesteddad who not only knows a lot about Swarthmore, but even has much of the lingo down!</p>
<p>And that's despite having the discretion not to use the official campus "lingo" nickname for the women's side of Parrish!</p>
<p>lol. Wow. Never to an adult have I written LOL. I'm sure glad you you remained tactful. :)</p>
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is convenient to the administration
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</p>
<p>So, who did get Al Bloom in Assassin?</p>
<p>Hi Interested Dad - I have a quick question for you (and any other swarthmore student who can add any information):</p>
<p>What is the security like at Parrish? Since it is an admin building I would assume that there is alot of activity (i.e. people coming and going...some students, some not)? </p>
<p>So what is the security like after hours when the admin offices are closed?</p>
<p>Doors to Parrish are locked at 10 pm (can be opened with a room key) and there is a key code or room key required for entry into any of the dormitory areas. No one had anything stolen from Parrish in my year.</p>
<p>There was a problem with an intruder last year or the year before. I don't know if the full story ever came out, but it sounds like it was probably a workman or something. In the aftermath, they started locking all the dorm areas separate from the admin offices.</p>
<p>Parrish has students coming and going all hours of the day. The mailboxes and a nice student lounge with a high def TV are located on the first floor. My daughter thought it was the best lounge on campus for watching football.</p>
<p>Thank you Fhinas888.... and Interested Dad! </p>
<p>I asked D about this and she seemed completely oblivious as if we were living in Utopia! She said: I'll be ok - the dorm rooms are locked.....</p>
<p>yeah the dorm rooms are locked - but the doors to Parrish itself are not! (or at least not until 10pm...although D says the doors were never locked when she visited as she was able to come and go without a key after 10pm)</p>
<p>I truly hope this is not the case - but I suppose I will have to live on faith!</p>
<p>Counting down to D's departure! Talk about last minute anxieties!</p>
<p>Unless students prop the doors open, you now can't get onto any residential hall in Parrish without a key or a keypad code. Doors to the individual halls from the stairways are locked, separately from the doors to the building.</p>
<p>Honestly, the odds of crime in Parrish Hall will be lower than the odds of the train derailing on the way from the airport.</p>
<p>The doors may be locked but those said doors are not renovated; this means that they aren't necessarily the best fit for the locking device. What I mean is that at least on the guys' side (never tried this on the other side) when the doors are locked, it just takes a little force to pry it open. Still to get into the girls halls the code is required (there are numerous ways to get into the guys side although honestly we never really worried about it, well except for a hallmate that we weren't particularly too fond of who had his ipod stolen from his room). The 2007 RA told us how some guy apparently went up to his room and stole a lot of his stuff (he left it open all the time) but the guy was really dumb so he wore the RA's clothing out the door. Long story short the RA saw the guy with the RA's clothing on (the guy was even kind enough to say 'hi') and nabbed him somehow.</p>
<p>So anyway it generally feels safe now, the guys don't really worry about intruders and the girls have working locks. As long as you lock your door your belongings should be fine barring a roommate who loses his keys while doing handstands on the beach at night slightly tipsy and needs you to leave the room unlocked because he doesn't want to pay for a new key... but that only happened once so you're good.</p>
<p>
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It is these flaws that make us wonder about the ways in which the endowment is spent, especially when our peer institutions, like Amherst, are just finishing complete remodeling of their dorms.
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It's being diverted toward the production of an endless stream of excessively positive information packets for interesteddad, obviously.</p>