<p>The brochure about the Penn housing options sounds almost too good to be true. Is the housing really as great as they make it sound? How hard is it for freshman to get decent arrangements? Does anyone have any experience with the residential programs?</p>
<p>In Harrison (one of the high-rises), there's a residential program placing all freshmen on the same 3 floors, which builds the sense of community that is at the other houses for freshmen, which is why it's going to be higher up on my housing app. That being said, I don't think freshmen get very much representation in the high-rises.</p>
<p>On another note, how many people share a bathroom on a floor in one of the quad houses? They have the residential programs that I want and I know that bathrooms seem to be a pretty unimportant deal, especially in the face of interests, but for someone who's never had to share before for more than a week (at Boys State where I was on a weird schedule because of the newspaper and was able to use it during the off time), it's a pretty big deal.</p>
<p>The bathrooms in the quad are usually shared by 10-15 people. You will get used to it quickly and it is not really that bad. I am a little biased, but if you are interested at all in a social life as a freshman I would have to say the highrises are probably not the best choice, even in the Freshman Experience Program. You will get better rooms, but you are going to have to be MUCH more proactive about making friends than in the quad/hill/kceh. Don't get me wrong, a social life is not mutually exclusive with living in the highrises as a freshman, but it will be harder to meet people than in dorms that have mostly freshmen.</p>
<p>there are very few triples, and singles are usually scattered amongst doubles - in general quad is a social place and the only way you won't make friends is if you hide in your room all the time. you won't do that (i hope), so don't worry.</p>