<p>I'm confused...is howell the house for non-first years? I thought the chem free dorm was called hyde. and also, I read that one of the new dorms will be the first year chem free dorm (& they're closing hyde down for renovation)?</p>
<p>howell is the house affiliated with hyde dorm this year, and since hyde is indeed being closed for renovations next year, howell will be affiliated with the chem-free dorm (one of the new dorms), whatever it ends up being called.</p>
<p>each first-year dorm has an affiliated house - have you read about the bowdoin housing system? they're supposed to be "frat replacements" and all-inclusive and etc. - and yes, upperclassmen can live in them. by choosing to do so, they commit to planning social events for the house and its affiliation (the first years living in the affiliated dorm, and all the upperclassmen who <em>used</em> to live in that particular dorm...). usually the houses are occupied mostly by sophomores and a few juniors. if i'm not mistaken, travisd is also living in a college house next year.</p>
<p>Indeed indeed, living in MacMillan next year. Any 09ers living in Coleman next year? Or have you not found out yet?</p>
<p>Haven't found out yet. I've filled out the roommate survey, but I don't think we found out where we're going to be till the July mailing. Not sure, though.</p>
<p>How good/bad/okay would you rate winthrop dorm? looks/sanitary</p>
<p>Winthrop is a fine dorm, lot of good parties there last year. It is one of the older freshman dorms, but you're right near a lot of classes (wake up 3 minutes before the class starts) and it's still a bowdoin dorm (pretty big and nice)</p>
<p>I will be an upcoming freshman in the fall.. I think I get the roomate setup but correct me if I'm wrong.. So you get a triple..and you can pick chem or chem free? What would any of you suggest.. chem or chem free? I don't want to be living with you know hard core party animals, but I also don't want to be living with all work no play students. Will it be difficult for me to study/get things done if I choose chem? Do athletes usually choose a certain one? thanks!</p>
<p>I just wish freshman wouldn't get triples. The rooms are really meant for doubles but they put another person into them. It is the one negative about Bowdoin that I don't like. The design is bad in some of them too. At one of the open houses for accepted students we saw a triple with very small rooms but the hallways were enormous. The students were telling us it was a really bad design. I hope the adcoms read this board and report back this type of information. We did see senior housing that seemed spacious and pretty nice but the freshman dorms we have seen are not impressive. I know several who have decided against Bowdoin and have stated they disliked the dorms and the triple situation.</p>
<p>look, it's a freshman dorm... The fact that you get a common room is pretty impressive - as compared to many other colleges, Bowdoin's freshman housing is palatial.</p>
<p>Some of my roommates' friends have visited and were incredibly impressed with our rooms. One of them goes to Conn College and told us that her room is a one room triple, slightly larger than our common area. </p>
<p>East and West (the ones with the large hallways) that you saw are meant for upperclassmen housing, and will become doubles when the original freshmen housing are done renovating. The large hallways are meant so that kids will come out and socialize in the hallways (and they do their job). </p>
<p>When the freshmen housing are all renovated (hyde, appleton, winthrop, maine, coleman and moore), the rooms will be quads instead of triples. Two doubles and a common area -- sheesh! </p>
<p>When my friends went through the housing lottery this year, they were complaining about the small one room doubles that they might have to be in until one of them said, "you guys, we got spoiled this year, my boyfriend's room is a one room double the size of our common area."</p>
<p>Take it as you will. </p>
<p>Hemelop22 - you get to choose between chem and chem free, there was also a single sex floor option on mine. There are a few 'athletes' who live in chem free dorms but mostly the ones who do track and field. The hockey, baseball and football players usually live in the nonchemfree dorms. This year, Maine hall seemed to hold the most parties for football/hockey players and they were definitely loud on the weekends. Honestly though, it's a good balance - they'll party hard on the weekends, but they'll work on the weekdays. </p>
<p>One thing that I'd recommend doing on your roommate forms is to fill out the additional comments part. Reslife looks at that and it'll definitely match you up with people who have similar interests. </p>
<p>I heard that reslife will not handle requests for preferences of who to live with. </p>
<p>Hope that helps!</p>
<p>Yeah, i loved the triple set up. i don't think it's anything to be worried about. I'll be going to Bowdoin next year and spent the night in the dorms during the open house, and the dorms are something I'm very much looking forward to (I will admit, the first time i visited I was a bit skeptical about them, but they seem fairly nice).</p>
<p>Question #6 : I would like to entertain in my room.</p>
<p>What exactly does that mean?</p>
<p>Do you want to have 15 friends over on thursday night to drink and listen to music, before you all go out and party somewhere else.</p>
<p>Will you be hosting parties in your room.</p>
<p>Is there a way to request less of a "party" dorm without having to go for the chem free option? ie, if you write in that you would prefer NOT to be with the real jocks could this help the situation?</p>
<p>My son was interested in selecting the chem free option mostly because he is not from the all night partiers especially on school nights. Tell me more about the personalities of the chem free students.............</p>
<p>You can't really 'request' that kind of thing, 'cause athletes and party-ers will always end up somehow in each dorm. It's kind of funny cause it seems as if each dorm always ends up having some sort of personality. i.e this year, winthrop seemed to be the hippie dorm. </p>
<p>Chem free kids are usually kids who don't drink at all because of religious beliefs or just because they've and don't want to. Then there are the kids who DO do it, and will go out to parties, but like the fact that they can come back to a quiet place on weekends. There are a few big party-ers here and there because they handed their forms in late and such. This seems to be the general 'type' for the chem free kids this year, I heard that in the year before last, the chem free kids were more committed to NOT drinking, but this year there are a great deal of chem free kids out partying. </p>
<p>To be completely honest (and this is not Bowdoin, but college in general), you will see a lot of kids who have never drank before college, or were against it, come to school and be at parties. That seems to be a very obvious statement, but it's quite surprising for people really.</p>
<p>A lot of them are completely chill, normal kids who are in a similar situation to your son. Some of them are quieter than most, some are strange.</p>
<p>That said, the non-chem free kids fall into the same bracket. Some are loud, some are quiet, some are jocks, some are not. Some are strange, some are chill. </p>
<p>I lived in a normal dorm my freshman year - it didn't bother me at all. I might go out on Fridays and Saturdays, but besides some noise on thursday nights, it wasn't bad.</p>
<p>Most of the time, kids might party in the dorm on thursdays for a while, then go somewhere else - the loudest and biggest parties don't occur in freshman dorms.</p>