<p>Can anyone describe a little bit about each of the residential colleges? Which one is supposedley the newest, oldest, best, worst, etc.?</p>
<p>can somebody also tell me HOW the residential colleges are set up?</p>
<p>Here is a brief run down on the residential college system:</p>
<p>Before you arrive you are assigned to one of 9 residential colleges. This is at random. You may request to be in (or not to be in) one residential college if an immediate family member was in that college. You may request to be in the same residential college as one friend but you both have to make that request and you cannot specify which college you want to be together at.</p>
<p>Each college counts about 1/9 of undergraduates as members - you are still a member even if you move off-campus or are on study abroad. Each college houses about 250 students. </p>
<p>Each college also includes a couple of apartments where the RA's live. RA's are faculty members who are there to help you out if you need anything - one of the RA's at my college has an apartment like a video rental store: every movie you could want to watch he has and will lend you.</p>
<p>Each college also has an adjacent house for the college masters. These faculty members have you over for dinner sometimes, are liasons between the college system and the administration and faculty and are generally pretty fun people. They may have children living in the house and/or pets.</p>
<p>Each college also has a dining area, although some have dining areas shared by more than one college. They also have a commons area for hanging out and watching TV, playing video games, pingpong, etc. Each college has an exercise room, laundry room, study room and computer lab. Many have pianos.</p>
<p>As to college stereotypes, you should remember that because the memebers are chosen at random, there is a sampling of students from every type at each college. That said, the stereotypes linger.</p>
<p>Lovett - Kind of the frat house of rice - loud, drunken and throws pretty decent parties. But I live there and don't drink, so go figure.</p>
<p>Will Rice - A very sober place. Quiet, friendly, and bad food. Rice's oldest college, but very pretty.</p>
<p>Wiess - They kind of keep to themselves. They have this crazy "TeamWiess" thing going on. They think they are better than everyone, but they are just jealous. They throw NOD, one of the craziest parties of the year.</p>
<p>Baker - Beautiful commons, but it smells funny. A lot of nice traditions like freshman camping and Christmas tree hunt. One of the oldest colleges. Looks a lot like Will Rice.</p>
<p>Brown/Jones - basically the same place. Both have recently been redone so they have very nice commons, and they have good food. North colleges, so they are far from things, and people don't go to their parties as much.</p>
<p>Martel - not a college. Well, it kind of is, but since it's so new people have taken to calling it Martel Dormitory. Beautiful rooms, but not a lot of tradition (yet...) North College.</p>
<p>Hanszen - Stayed here for owl weekend. Really friendly people, but somewhat lacking in a personality of their own. They share their food service with Wiess. Nice, 2-level commons. They have this sculpture of a knight outside and they are very protective of it, I don't know why. They have lame cheers, but I love them anyway.</p>
<p>Sid Richardson - They think they are awesome because they have a very tall building, but actually they are just a colony of Lovett (Lovett used to have the land that sid is built on). They do primal scream every night at midnight during finals. They throw 80s party which is great. It has a live band and you can dance like a total idiot on a table and just tell people that these are your 80s moves.</p>
<p>Hope that was helpful. I cried when I found out I was in Lovett, but it has really turned out fine. The randomness ensures that the college won't have too many of one type of person.</p>
<p>thanks jen! this was really interesting and helpful!</p>
<p>are all the dorm rooms in rice pretty much the same at every college? which college has the biggest dorm rooms....smallest dorm rooms...etc? Also, when I visited Rice, I noticed that all the beds were single bunk beds, just about a few feet below the ceiling (sid richardson)....is this the same for the other colleges as well?</p>
<p>The dorm rooms themselves vary by college - in general, the newer colleges have nicer rooms. Some colleges (Will Rice, Brown, some of Baker, Hanszen, maybe others) have hallway bathrooms. Others (Lovett, Martel, some of Baker, others) have suite bathrooms - but Martel and some of Baker have common rooms in their suites, Lovett doesn't.</p>
<p>The furniture in each dorm room is the same. It's modular, which means that you can arrange it in a whole lot of different ways - you can loft your bed, or leave it down, etc. When you arrive, look around at how other people set up their rooms for ideas. </p>
<p>I guess that ceiling height varies - my bed is lofted and there is more than enough room above it to sit up straight in bed, and when lying down i can just barely touch the ceiling. I guess this would also depend on how tall you were.</p>
<p>One interesting thing is that all of the dorm rooms cost the same for room and board - it doesn't matter if you have the grossest room on campus or the most gorgeous. In someways this seems unfair, but since you are assigned randomly it would make sense for people to be forced to pay more if they didn't want to.</p>
<p>cool! also how does this residential college system work? do you basically get assigned to one of the colleges for all four years? is it the same dorm room/roomate every year?</p>
<p>bump......</p>
<p>You are assigned to a specific college for all 4 years, and you remain a member of that college even if you are studying abroad or live off campus. You may (and most people do) switch roommates for each year. You might, but probably will not, have the same room more than once. Something of interest is that housing is only guaranteed freshman year - some colleges are forced to have some students move off-campus. Some colleges have sophomores move off, others juniors. Freshman get first priority, followed by seniors, pretty much everywhere i think.</p>
<p>I absolutely LOVE Rice's Residential College system. I've been in Will Rice, both of my good friends live there, and frankly, I'd rather live there. I like to party (but not drink), but I figure I can sleep, study, and chill in a room there and go to Lovett, for example, to party. I don't think I'd mind living in Brown or Jones either. (I need to visit again!)</p>
<p>Another interesting fact about Baker... If I'm not mistaken, on every 13th and 31st of the month, members of that college streak (you can wear a bathing suit) with shaving cream all over their bodies, stamping windows all over campus with their buttcheeks. 'Tis true!</p>
<p>And now to questions:
Which ones are the newest dorms? I know they have elevators, too, which is a big help when transporting heavy objects like TVs and what not. Also, if you choose to live with another person lets say your sophomore or junior year, and they're not in the same college as you are, will you be able to live with them in theirs or vice versa? (I know you'll still ALWAYS belong to the college tha was assigned to you.)</p>
<p>baker 13 - people don't wear bathing suits. You go naked or you don't go. It's not mandatory or anything. And you don't have to be fron baker to do it either.</p>
<p>Newest dorms - martel is newest. Weiss has recently been rebuilt - like the old building was knocked down and they built a new one. Hanszen, jones, and brown have new commons. Lovett was built in the 60's. Baker and will rice are pretty old.</p>
<p>I THINK that they all have elevators. I KNOW that Lovett and Brown have elevators, but i think that the rest do as well.</p>
<p>You don't room with someone from another college unless you switch colleges. Which is VERY RARE.</p>
<p>wow...why do people at rice like to go naked so much? we have NoD and now we have baker 13...</p>
<p>True, but other colleges have naked things as well. Recently, Bennington college made news because it had a new president that wanted students to stop walking around its campus naked all the time and the students were mad about that. Other colleges have things like the naked olympics and streaking too. Don't ask me why. But you should know that you don't have to go and do baker 13 (the vast majority of people are not participants) and that you actually aren't naked at NOD. You won't be allowed into NOD actually if you aren't following Texas Decency Laws. And seriously, you really don't have to participate in any of this if you feel uncomfortable. I do, however, strongly advise you to lock your doors when baker 13 comes by or you might be in for a messy hug.</p>
<p>My D is on the 3rd floor of Hanszen old section (the tower) and there is NOT an elevator. It has been good exercise. The rooms in Hanszen vary- they are not all the same. Last year she had a suite with two bedrooms (2 girls each per room) opening onto a shared living room. This suite had a connection bathroom which was shared by another suite of 4 girls. My D said it worked out fine because they weren't all around at the same time. The bathroom had two of everything.</p>
<p>wooh, go Lovett!</p>
<p>EOL RRF, lol</p>
<p>The rooms I saw at Brown were quads with a living room in the middle.</p>
<p>"EOL RRF, lol"</p>
<p>hehe, ten points to any prospy who knows what that means.</p>
<p>Pretty sure:
EOL= Edgar Odell Lovett
My guess:
RRF= Rules Rice Forever *couldn't think of anything else"</p>
<p>"I am the best college-- all the others suck." -Edgar Odell Lovett</p>
<p>smazn - while I cannot give away the answer until you are a member of lovett college (if you are that lucky, let me know), you are close but absolutely no cigar for you!</p>