Have a kid who is likely depositing at Delaware this week- can anyone fill me in on how to choose housing? Kid would like an all-freshman dorm situation. Is the north campus the only option?
I honestly don’t really remember how I chose my dorm last year (I don’t even know if I had an option given I got in honors), however, as a current freshman maybe I can provide some information to help give you an idea of what the dorm options are like if you do get an choice.
When we talk about dorms, you can think about them being split into three areas…
East campus, which is about a five minute walk from the green, conveniently located right next to two of the dining halls and Perkins student center, and has a nice turf in the center area between all the different dorm buildings. I might be a bit biased since I live here, but if you ask me its by far the best place on campus to live, which I’ll get into later. On east campus, you have five different residence halls, which as far as I know are for only freshmen.
- Louis Redding Hall (my hall) - The honors dorm, and easily the best place to live as a freshman on campus. It's new, has some of the most spacious rooms on campus, and most importantly, has AC. It's almost all exclusively honors, however, a few pre-health students live on the first floor as part of the pre-health living learning community. You also get to enjoy all the special perks of each of the other east campus dorms, as they're all only about a minute walk from each other, forming a big square around the turf in the middle. It's five stories tall and is basically a big U from above with a nice little internal courtyard area. It's on the far edge of the turf and is across from Perkins.
- Gilbert Hall - Located directly behind Redding, if you ask me, its probably the second best place to live on campus as a freshman. It was built along at the same time as Redding, and as such, building wise has all the same perks as Redding, however, it's also much smaller (I think the best way to describe it is that Redding once was a box, and for some reason they decided to chop off the top edge, move it fifty feet back, and named it Gilbert), and it houses the ROTC program students, so it's hard to get into it if you're not in ROTC.
- Russel Hall - Russel is one of the older dorms, but still a solid option. It lacks AC, the dorms are slightly older, and have this weird Z shape to them, but they're not bad space wise IMO. The big perk to Russel tho is that it houses Russel dining hall, one of the three dining halls on campus, and unlike CR (the other nearby dining hall) you can take out food in to-go boxes, which is really nice. Its got this odd shape I can't really describe, but basically it's split into different sections (Russel A, Russel B, etc). It's on the left side of the turf and faces Harrington.
- Harrington - Another slightly older dorm, its got the same exact rooms as Russel, however, instead of a dining hall, Harrington has the POD (basically a WaWa / Seven-Eleven with a Subway inside, open to 2AM, and if you ask me one of the best things UD has ever done), as well as the Harrington fitness center, which is just a small gym with maybe a dozen machines and some mats for doing Yoga or whatever floats your boat. It also has this really cool front lobby with some big projectors which always have sports or something on. Russel lies across from it on the turf.
- Lane / Thompson - Externally it looks a lot older, but inside it's more modern, with rooms like Redding or Gilbert, BUT it has no AC. It's a solid option to live in, but there's nothing really to special about it. It's probably tied with Gilbert for being the smallest east campus residence hall. It also isn't directly on the turf, but instead faces the side of Perkins student center. I guess it's maybe a minute or so closer to the green than the other dorms?
As far as I know, all of these buildings are only for freshman, so yea, for East campus, if you get into Redding or Gilbert, you’re golden, but if you don’t, Russel / Lane & Thompson / Harrington are still really good options given how close to the green they are and the perks that come with just being on east campus in general.
Central campus is kinda odd, since it’s almost all upperclassman housing, however, it also has two freshman dorms as well. It’s directly on the green, which is great for classes, so I’d say location wise it’s probably tied with east campus. It should be noted tho with only two residence halls, both being relatively small, and one of them being open to upperclassman as well, it’s very hard to end up here. That being said, here we have…
- South Academy Street - The newest residence hall on campus, opening literally weeks before school started this year, it's super nice, with the same dorms as Redding / Gilbert, and common spaces that arguably surpass them, it's a great place to live if you can. Unlike Smyth (the other central campus freshman hall), its not directly on the green, but instead tucked behind another building which is directly on the green. It's also right next to CR, which is probably one of the best dining halls on the east coast, so that's a huge perk. I'd say it's tied with Redding for the best dorm you can end up in.
- Smyth - Honestly know very little about this one. I've only ever met one kid who lives here, but from walking by it, it looks like the rest of the dorms right on the green, which is to say the rooms are nice, but it doesn't have AC. I also think it might be mixed between freshman and upperclassmen, but I'm not sure. As far as I'm concerned practically no freshman live here, so I wouldn't worry about it.
And finally we get to north campus. A majority of freshman end up here. It has some pros, namely that all the buildings are nice and new, with AC, rooms the same style of Redding / South Academy / Gilbert, and shared bathrooms between pairs of rooms. However, the big downside here is that you’re a 10 minute walk from main campus. I won’t really go into any of the individual dorms since they’re pretty much all the same style, however, here are some thoughts on north campus
- They try really hard to make up for it being slightly isolated, with a huge beautiful turf, a fitness center in one of the dorms up there (Independence I think), as well as a POD and dining hall, and lots of basketball / volleyball courts, however, its up to you if that balances it out. From my impression, there is a great sense of community up there since it kinda feels like you're all stuck together, but on the flip side, you do feel a bit separated from main campus. I think it's what you make of it.
- Transportation isn't an issue really, since they have shuttles between north campus and main campus that run throughout the day. It's more that it's just not directly attached to campus.
- The three freshman dorms up there (George Reed, James Smith, McKean) are all freshman only, but you're surrounded by lots of upperclassmen who live in all the other dorms on north campus, unlike east campus which is all only freshmen.
So yea, overall, that’s my quick rundown of UD housing. I know it doesn’t answer your question directly, but hopefully you find the information useful. I’m on spring break and bored out of my mind so if you have any more questions about UD or the honors program I’ll try and answer them, and I’ll try and be on the class of 2022 thread answering questions for any possible future Blue Hens.
@Delocalized thank you, that is SO helpful! We drove up to campus on Monday and walked around, since we had never been taken up to North Campus on any of our tours.
The housing application basically lets you choose two options: Traditional dorms (which I’m guessing is what you describe in East Campus) or In-suite Bathroom dorms (which sounds like the North Campus). I guess what is really comes down to is that if you HAVE to have AC, then your choose In-suite, and if you HAVE to be on east campus, you choose traditional. Would you agree?
We forced our kid to walk from east campus up to north campus so he could see what it was actually like to make that trek. It didn’t feel too bad to him, and once we got up to north the big turf field was really nice. I like the idea of kid being surrounded by freshman though - so East Campus sounds better for that.
Do they do a lot of community-building in the dorms? Have programs and social events? What is your major? How do you like UD so far? Our kid did NOT get into honors, but does not seem to care at all.
Thanks so much for all the info!!!
@STF4717
For housing, I’d say that’s correct. Of course you can get lucky, and end up with AC on East Campus, but if that’s the way they’re splitting it now, your observation sounds about right.
When it comes to being surrounded by all freshman, I’d say there are some pros and some cons. From a transition aspect, I think it was a little bit easier, as almost everyone you see in Russel dining hall, or on the East Campus turf is also a freshman, which can be a bit less intimidating, but that’s a personal preference. On the other hand, a number of friends from my high school ended up on North Campus, and some of them have really liked having some upperclassmen living around them, as they’ve befriended some of them and have gotten some good advice on class registration, looking for second year housing, etc. It’s really an individual thing.
To answer your other questions…
There’s been a ton of community activities in my dorm so far, both on a larger, building wise scale, as well as on a smaller, section wise (each floor is split into sections, ex. 3A, 5B, etc) scale. At the beginning of the year I feel like they had more activities going on, and it varies week to week (they tend to not have as many the weeks before midterms), but there’s always something going on for sure.
Building wide, in a typical week, they usually will have one or two academically based activities (some speaker comes in and talks, upperclassmen come in and give advice on professors and registration, etc), a service activity (usually related to the B+ foundation), and two social / de-stressing activities (making snowflakes and free hot chocolate, dogs coming in for people to pet, competitions where people win gift cards, etc). Even if you’re really busy and have a ton of work to do, they’re great because they give you with a good opportunity to just take thirty minutes out of your day and meet people in your building and enjoy yourself. Additionally, once a month or so they also run bigger actives, like a freshman formal in the student center, or renting out half a dozen inflatable obstacle courses and having them set up for a day on the turf for people to play on. While these are less frequent they’re fantastic and always draw a lot of people.
While the building wide events are great however, I feel like the sectional level (to give you an idea, each section has one RA assigned to it, and contains about 30-40 kids, spread over 15-20 rooms) is really where most of the community building happens, and they’ve really done a great job with it. During the first weekend at UD, everything you do at orientation is done with your section, so right off the bat everyone who lives in your section knows each other and you’re sure to find some new friends by the end of the day. After the first weekends activities, you get to chose who you associate with, but the RAs are great in trying to make sure everyone is still meshing together, with them usually organizing sectional trips to football games or other weekend activities in a group chat with everyone in your section. The residence staff also has put a lot of thought into trying to build a sense of community, with monthly NET (I forget what NET stands for) challenges, where each section competes somehow (ex. which section can get the most members to sporting events over the month) for prizes, and opportunities such as U+2, where students can fill out paperwork and get funding for an event they want to organize for the community (a very common one is each section getting money to make a big thanksgiving dinner together before going home for thanksgiving break). It varies depending on how engaged the RAs and students living in that section are of course, but as a whole I feel like they’ve done a great job and encouraging a strong sense of community.
I’m a mechanical engineering student.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed UD. I must admit, I think a part of that has been just that I’ve been enjoying all the freedoms of college, but I also have come to love the school as well. The campus is beautiful, the freshman classes are a bit larger (but nothing too bad), the town is nice and I always feel safe, and most importantly I’ve made a ton of great friends. My one complaint is that I wish sports were a bit bigger here, since I’m a huge sports fan, and here they’re fairly popular, but nowhere near the level of a lot of other D1 schools. I do hear tho that they’re planning on significantly upgrading the stadium and all the student athletic facilities in part of the whole 750 million dollar fundraising campaign they’re on right now, so who knows, maybe they’ll get there before I graduate. Overall it’s just been amazing though.
@Delocalized … thank you so much! That info is so helpful!
@Delocalized Good info, one more question. Are there triples on East Campus in the traditional dorms, or are they only doubles? Thanks.
@CB04 I know at least in my building there are about 8 or so triples (mainly corner rooms) per floor, so probably 35ish triples over all in the whole building of ~300 rooms. I haven’t personally seen a triple in any of the other buildings on East Campus, but I’d bet they probably exist.
If you’re trying to get a triple, I’m sure that’s quite possible, since I believe you can request it in the housing application. If you’re worried about getting stuck in one though, I wouldn’t be too concerned. I think for the most part the number of students who request them is just around the number of them that exist, so if you want one it isn’t an issue, but if you don’t it’s rather unlikely you’d get stuck in one.