<p>I apologize for asking this question repeatedly, but since this has become one of the deciding factors in my choice of a college, I figured I'd ask for advice again--how hard is it go get a single dorm at Caltech? If a student's going to be completely miserable with a roommate, even for a year, is it a bad idea to come at all?</p>
<p>I'll try to explain my weird desire for a single room, but it's not one of those cool explanations like "I often feel compelled to juggle knives and chant at 5 am, and use sulfur in my personal religious practices." Basically, I have enough experience with being away from home in various situations to believe I'd drop out of college (or do something stupider) if I ended up with a roommate. It's not a question of getting along with the person or not wanting to be around people a lot generally or needing quiet at any particular point. The best way I can explain it is that I can't help focusing on other people when they're in the same room, the same way I have difficulty thinking while walking in a hallway because I'm focused on staying as far as possible to the side and making sure I'm not in anyone's way. </p>
<p>At some schools there's a procedure for getting a "medical single," and some schools are also willing to make arrangements for transgendered students and others for whom a single is a legitimate request. Does Caltech do this at all, and is there any chance that a weird enough need for privacy would count as a psychological-->medical problem? Or would they just be like "ach mein GOTT why did we ever admit this insane girl in the first place?" <em>blushes</em> I swear I'm not that weird in real life; it's just this one thing. Getting over it seems like the ideal plan, but it's a rather dangerous one to rely on.</p>
<p>So.. money at Caltech wouldn't be too much of an issue--I'm happy to pay extra for a single or probably even pay double to occupy a double as a single, although that seems pretty wasteful. I'm even happy to occupy a closet or something, but I'd want to know before arriving on campus that that'd be possible :) </p>
<p>The other possibility would be to rent an apartment off-campus, but that seems kind of lonely--I'd like to be involved in a house. Besides, I won't be able to sign a binding contract until my sophomore year, and my parents are unamused with the idea of me declaring myself an emancipated minor in order to do so (and thus becoming a non-dependent for tax purposes).</p>
<p>Anyway, any advice would be very much appreciated. At this point I'm considering either asking to do something else for a year while the South houses are renovated or going to MIT solely because they have singles, and that sounds pretty ridiculous even to me.</p>
<p>I actually know someone who has a single room, not in one of the 7 main houses. He too had reasons for wanting a single that went beyond the norm. One of the current students can advise you better, but I do think you can become a social member at a house.</p>
<p>It looks like the Marks and Braun houses are purely singles, so maybe you could live there and you could probably rotate into (or I guess become a social member) at one of the South Houses and then move into it once remodelings done...? I really dont know how anything works, I'm just guessing haha.</p>
<p>I wrote this big long reply and it just got deleted when I accidentally refreshed the page.</p>
<p>To sum it up, this is the type of thing you need to call Admissions or Housing to ask. It will be very hard to make absolutely sure you get a single all four years that you're here no matter where you rotate into. The only way to ensure it would be to see if Housing would give you a medical provision and allow you to live in Avery while rotating into another house (or possibly Avery). Braun is grad students only and Marks is upperclassmen only.</p>
<p>Here's a more complete answer for you: If you absolutely want to live in a single, there's two options.</p>
<p>The first is that you get picked into a south house or avery, which are both almost entirely singles. I personally got sorted into a south house, and as a freshman drew the worst possible card in the house...and still got a single.</p>
<p>The second option is to get a good offcampus pick and choose to live in marks or braun. Braun used to be graduate student housing, but is now housing undergraduates. It'll probably keep housing undergrads in upcoming years. There's quite a bit of luck involved with this solution though since you'll need to have one of the better picks.</p>
<p>yay! (sorry i didn't get a chance to talk to you more at pfw. silly ten thousand things to do.)</p>
<p>now, to flierdeke and everyone else who is coming to caltech: stop doing work immediately beyond what you need to do to get decent final grades and relax until september. see you all in a few months.</p>
<p>(I probably won't be at Caltech this summer... hopefully I'll be doing some somewhat less intense science education research at the Boston Museum of Science.)</p>
<p>:( Supposedly being at tech over the summer is much better during the school year because people actually have time to do fun stuff. Also my friend who was hear for a SURF before his freshman year, I think he said he had a fun time during the summer, lots of presthai/presidentwo (except for staying up until 5am (during the school year anyway) when he was practicing his SURF presentation, which is quite fun if you have a willing audience)</p>