I have two questions regarding dorm assignments.
The first of which is: What takes priority during these room assignments? The dorm selected or the preferences (for example: Snell-Hitchcock vs “I prefer a single room” placed at number one preference).
My second question is what are my chances of getting a room in Snell-Hitchcock if I deposited the money around 10 hours after the decision came out?
Thanks in advance for your answers! 
The dorm takes priority over the preferences. So, in your example, you’d be assigned to a double at Snell-Hitchcock before a single at your second choice.
You’ll get a room in Snitchcock.
You should be fine but you may get the double over the single. Gap year accepted people have already deposited and not sure how many singles are available to first years. You can make changes on your housing form as many times as you want until the due date if you happen to find another person who deposited equally early that you might like as a room mate if you would rather control your destiny over hoping for the single.
My entire housing application was devoted to how much I really really wanted a single. I was given a room in BJ, my first choice…in a double.
So that should answer your question.
Also, you’re going to get Snitchcock. But I recommend changing your mind and going for BJ.
@HydeSnark
Is there any reason in particular for why you were assigned to a double room rather than a single? Did you pay or your deposit late or…
Also, what are your reasons for advocating BJ?
Thanks in advance.
@ScrnNme I was assigned a single originally but housing messed up and had given me an already assigned room. So they switched my room at the last minute to the only thing available - a double. That meant that even though I deposited early I got unlucky. Still, depositing early increases your chance of getting a single dramatically.
While getting a double isn’t great, it isn’t the end of the world. It forced me to spend a lot more time outside of my room and socializing with my house - which I do not regret in the least. I’m in a pretty big single now (my friends at other schools are very jealous) and sometimes it’s a little too easy to turtle up in here.
Anyways, I’m extremely biased but I think BJ is the best dorm at UChicago by a mile. I had Snitchcock as my first choice until I prospied here and was lucky enough to get be given a host in Salisbury House. Snitchcock isn’t a bad place to live, don’t get me wrong, but BJ’s layout is incredible.
Each house is between 40 and 80 people. For comparison, Snell is ~50 and Hitchcock is ~100 people but for many purposes they act as one house. This leads to a very intimate (some people think too intimate, lol - housecest is a problem) house environment.
Each house is a separate section of BJ, and you cannot get from one house to another without going out of the front door (carved at the top with the house name!), into the courtyard, and into another house. This reinforces the feeling of your house as literal houses. While you’re almost definitely going to make some friends in other houses, it keeps houses together physically as a community in ways that houses in other dorms do not. Hitchcock has a similar layout, where you need to go all the way down to the basement to get from one section to another, but since it’s all one house, it only serves to compartmentalize and divide the house. In BJ the divides are clean and reinforce house culture, rather than inhibit them.
Every house in BJ is a blend of singles and doubles (well, except Vincent, which only has singles), so each house gets a mix of people who want both kinds. Snell is all singles and Hitchcock is all doubles (for a first year, at least), which I think creates and reinforces certain stereotypes between them about what kind of people they get. But, despite the mix, BJ has more singles available than Snitchcock. This mix leads BJ to a more social dorm than Snitchcock, in many respect - every house develops a culture where pretty much everyone leaves their doors open and flits between people’s rooms to socialize, though of course you can always close your door when you’ve had enough. Every house also has a robust lounge culture - each house has a large first floor lounge that almost everyone’s first stop when they come home to see who’s around. There’s always people in there talking, watching things, listening to music, playing video games, etc.
Outside of the houses, BJ has a ridiculous amount of nice wood-paneled study lounges that look like they walked out of the set of Harry Potter and a movie theater in the basement.
@HydeSnark thanks for taking your time to craft a lengthy reply. You’ve managed to convince me to put BJ as my first choice.
^ +1 thank you.
@HydeSnark “My entire housing application was devoted to how much I really really wanted a single. I was given a room in BJ, my first choice…in a double.”
So DD has the opposite problem. Her first choice is probably a double in BJ. $ was deposited within 3 hours of ED1 decision. But my understanding is that there are not very many doubles in BJ?
She would prefer a double in South to a single in BJ (or anyway, that’s what she thinks right now). She was hoping she could explicitly state on her housing form that she would prefer a double in South to a single in BJ and they might actually read it (rather than just giving her a single in BJ). Thinking that they may not read this is pushing her to put down South as her first choice dorm, rather than BJ.
What do you think?
The whole double-versus-single thing is a little overblown. People seem to think that a double is inherently more social than a single, and that a single can cut students off from other people. In reality, the culture of most dorms where most people have singles is that they leave their doors open when they are in the room and not asleep, so that they have the same kind of casual contact with the people who live around them that they would have if they were in a double or a suite, while at the same time having an option to preserve their privacy when they want. Also, as HydeSnark’s post implies, a double can be more social not only because you become friends with your roommate, but often because you don’t. Not getting along with your roommate in a double pretty much forces you out of your room and into common areas, hence more sociability but at a high cost.
One of my kids wanted a single and got it. She became friends with the girl across the hall, and their experience was indistinguishable from being roommates in a two-room double. They were in and out of each other’s room all the time, and even regularly fell asleep on each other’s floor watching reruns of something online. My other kid wanted a double and got a big one. However, he had a poor relationship with his roommate, and he wound up spending as little time as possible in his room. As a result, he barely had a relationship with anyone in his house; trying to be away from the room usually meant staying away from the dorm, too. He made lots of friends, and wasn’t lonely, but it was far from an optimal situation.
You can’t really predict what the situation will be with either a single or a double, and there’s much more overlap in the range of possibilities than people generally acknowledge.
Yeah, I know. I’ve tried to tell her what HydeSnark says about BJ’s sociability, because a single in BJ seems like it would have been ideal situation for me in college. But DD is still concerned (because she reasons that this could happen to her: “'I’m in a … single … now … and sometimes it’s a little too easy to turtle up in here”). Both her dad and I have tried to suggest to her that the risk of getting a problem roommate is higher than the risk of her turtling up. She’s not convinced. Luckily, she is easygoing and gets along with almost everyone. So she still probably wants a double more than she wants BJ per se.
Anyone know if the University Theater kids tend to cluster anywhere?
@Lea111 There are a fair number of doubles in BJ actually. Most people going for BJ prefer singles, so you’re more likely to get a double anyways. If you put BJ #1 and say you want a double and you’ve already deposited now, I’d guess you’re nearly 100% likely to get what you want.
And that’s funny, I wanted a single cause I shared a room with my brother while growing up. I wanted my own space, finally.
If you want anecdotes to convince her that the “college experience” is highly overrated, my first roommate was kicked out after hotboxing my room without so much as a “how do you feel about the smell of pot?” You’re as likely to get a roommate you don’t get along with at all as you are to get a roommate you end up best friends with, and you are even more likely to get a roommate you neither like or dislike, and you just awkwardly share a space without really talking. Rooming is a necessary evil arising from space constraints, the “college experience” fantasy is propaganda to make people feel less bad about a very unideal situation.
UT kids cluster in BJ, lol.
Thanks. That’s weird - I felt like I read the opposite on CC, that there were more singles than doubles in BJ. Of course, if there were 30% doubles, that would still mean that almost half the kids would be in doubles.
Well, it sounds like BJ might be the best idea then.
No one has to sell me on the idea of a single. I’m someone who can’t even think if I can hear another person’s music or soft speech. I got put in a small double room in an 8-woman suite as a freshman (8 women; 1 sink; 1 toilet; 1 shower; 1 telephone line before cell phones existed) and couldn’t sleep or study for a year. DD has her opinion, though.
I thought UT kids would cluster in BJ and/or South, due to location. If there are lots in BJ, that’s another plus for BJ.
She can ask for a double, if she still wants. If she gets a single, it probably will work out just fine too.
Do ya think Housing looks at the information on the form (besides dorm and double/single preference)? Spends any time on it?
@Lea111 : My information is somewhat out of date, but one of my kids was a core UT kid throughout college, and the other was very involved with UT first year, and had three or four friends who were core UT kids. As far as I know there was no first-year cluster, at least back then. Things might be different now that so much of the performing has moved to the Logan Center, making southern addresses more attractive to theater people.
Second year, my core UT kid lived in a small apartment building (6 units, each with 3-4 people) at 54th and Ingleside that was effectively a UT theme house. Every apartment had at least one person, and most more than that, who was very involved in UT and/or a TAPS major. It was a lot of fun, and much opportunity for spontaneous collaboration was had.
Historically, the University Theater is the single largest student organization at the University of Chicago, by a considerable margin. Hundreds of students are involved every year in some capacity in one of the many UT projects. There are too many of them to have a meaningful cluster in one place.
@JHS these days UT upperclassmen cluster in the Pepperland, but possibly in other buildings, too.
Honestly, if you get involved with UT you will meet lots of UT people so you don’t need to worry about positioning yourself near them. But a lot of BJ is involved; a good 30-40% of my house, I think.
@Lea111 BJ does have more singles than doubles, but there are a decent number of doubles. It’s like 20%, I think, but demand for BJ doubles is not that high compared to BJ singles.
How are the singles in North ? Do the majority of the quads have a private bedroom but a common area ?
Singles in North are small but not claustrophobic. Everything you need (and more) fits if you make efficient use of underbed storage. Very little flexibility wrt furniture arrangement. There was room for adding a nightstand or file cabinet. The quads in North are all apartments with living room, kitchen, bathroom, and 4 single bedrooms.