Hi,
My D wants to go to a college whose dorms have single sex-bathrooms. Her big sister goes to LAC whose dorms are all co-ed bathrooms and D is terrified of the idea. My older D says you will get used to it but the younger is not buying it.
Her other preferences are: Northeast, Northwest, West coast, in or close to a big city. The college size doesn’t matter. Of course she is interested in women’s colleges.
thanks!!
I would say that co-ed bathrooms are the exception, not the rule. The few instances that I have seen where co-ed bathrooms (not single occupancy) exist in the dorms, the residents need to vote on it beforehand. While I am sure there are exceptions, I’m not sure I would use this as a driver for college selection.
I wasn’t sure if co-ed bathrooms are the norm these days or not. Of course this should not be the deciding factor but as I see in the “The weirdest reason why your kid does not even consider certain schools” thread, every kid has their own weird pet peeves.
I was under the impression that even though there are co-ed DORMS, every floor is a single sex. So all guys on one floor and all guys share one bathroom, second floor is all girls and all the girls share one bathroom. As @skieurope says, focus on academics first when searching for quality. Don’t focus on the bathroom thing in the search.
@TheDidactic. There are all kinds of arrangements of co-ed dorms. Many are co-ed by floor but many are also co-ed by room. Most seem to have single sex bathrooms but plenty have co-ed or gender neutral bathrooms. Really depends on the college/university. Can’t assume that any one arrangement is universally the norm. But I do agree that the bathroom thing is probably best left out of the initial search criteria.
I endured a SS bathroom in a Grad dorm in the 90s. Everybody hated it. It was awkward. It certainly did not lead to anything that a parent might fear.
I lived in a freshman dorm with coed bathroom over 30 years ago (!). I remember the hallway had to reach consensus and if any one objected, then we would have gone single sex. The alternative was to have the boys walk down one floor and use the first floor bathroom (only boys lived on the first floor). We decided to just share. It worked out fine.
I wouldn’t veto a college on this one issue. Most colleges we visited had a range of dorm living arrangements, not just one.
Many of the 20 or more colleges we visited had co-ed dorms and bathrooms. D really isn’t down with that but she hasn’t taken any school of the list for just that one reason. I can assure you though that if there is a real tie in the end, co-ed bathrooms could very well be a determining factor lol. Can’t say I blame her, its bad enough having to share with so many strangers and then you add the opposite sex? Because she’s an “only”, she’s always had her own bathroom.
There is nothing odd in the OP D’s concern. I would expect most universities do not offer only the one option - of the 15 plus schools we visited, some had a dorm that had co-ed bathrooms, but many did not, and all or most also had single sex bathrooms. Once she gets her list of school choices, she should do a little research into the dorm life at each school, and if there is no “opt out” available for her to choose a single sex bathroom, she can figure that into her decision of where to apply.
Thank you everyone. Just because her big sister’s dorm had only co-ed option, we had the impression that that is the norm. Seems like it is not. We will do the bathroom research after we have a rough list of school choices. Thanks again!
Choose a single sex school. 
We encountered a wide variety of options when touring colleges this past year, including the hall vote and, my favorite, a changeable sign so that the gender designation can change depending on current need.
^ best solution!
My son goes to UCONN. Floors are co-ed but each floor has both girls and boys rest rooms. I don’t think either of my kids would want co-ed bathrooms either!
My daughter didn’t want co-ed bathrooms either. We found that this was very common on the west coast, and I would imagine it is in the northeast also. My daughter was interested in so many schools that this was one of the factors that helped narrow her search in the beginning. We found this to be much less common in the south. I know that you aren’t especially interested in the south but we are from the northwest and have found southerners to be extremely warm, friendly, and welcoming. There are large cities in the south and you may find colleges, both larger universities and smaller LAC’s, that work for your daughter bathroom wise there!
Thanks for understanding my D’s pet peeve!!
@HiToWaMom haha, I’m guilty of using this to narrow down my list of schools - your D is definitely not alone in her concern!!
There are lots of schools with suite-style bathrooms, so you’re not sharing with the whole floor anyway.
One LAC we visited had a bathroom with co-ed gang showers, which is a shock to most parents (and which is also probably the point). The shower entry had a wooden letter hung on a nail outside that could be rotated to be a “W” for women-only, “M” for men-only, or “E” for everyone. They really put the liberal in liberal arts college.
My D attends Brown and her floor voted at the beginning of the year whether they would designate some of the bathrooms on the floor as co-ed; this is actually a pretty good deal for females because men really spend very little time in the bathrooms, so the co-ed bathroom is really a de facto female bathroom.
To the OP, this should really be a non-issue at most any school. Every school I know of still maintains single sex bathrooms in a majority of their housing, and I’m sure you can request during the summer that your D be housed only where there is single-sex bathrooms. I bet the school gets that a lot and has to accommodate the requests because of potential liability issues.