<p>When I visited Notre Dame, our tour guide told us about the single-sex dorms and that members of the opposite sex cannot be in someone's dorm after a certain time. Can a current student tell me a bit about this? Are these rules frustrating, do they truly feel restrictive? Or is the rule not taken very seriously? Any feedback is appreciated!</p>
<p>It must be frustrating for sexually active folks.</p>
<p>On weekends, I think people of the opposite sex are allowed to be in another dorm until 2am. But on regular weekdays I think it is 12am. I'm not a student there, so I wouldn't know if it is frustrating or anything. But when i stayed overnight there in the fall I didn't really see it as too big of a problem then.</p>
<p>That is right. Overall it isn't that big of a problem to be honest. They know that sex is going to happen regardless, but what it does help is keep order in the dorms. It means that parties end at 2 AM on weekends, which is late enough, you know? You can always go off-campus if you want to party more, but if you want to sleep, you know you will be able to. I don't know, I personally like parietals. It really isn't all that restrictive, and if you find it is, you can always move off-campus.</p>
<p>Parietals are your best friend. It's a convenient way to kick unwanted guests out of your room when you're tired and also set an upper limit on the maximum amount of time you can be sexiled. Are they inconvenient? I've only run into them a few times when I had girls over, and every dorm has 24 hour lounges where you can do homework or finish a movie. I personally think the benefits of parietals outweigh the costs.</p>
<p>you can always go to another school. Perhaps you are missing an important element of what Notre Dame is all about if parietals are going to cramp your style.</p>
<p>There's only one school worth going to.</p>
<p>Amen,
putschcasusbelli</p>
<p>Thanks guys! Yea, a piece of me likes the parietals, i'm not really complaining. Just need some ideas of the pros and cons, to make me a bit more comfortable with my worries, since it's different from most other schools. :)</p>
<p>Parietals are still taken seriously, although less so than they were in the past I believe. An 80's alum told me that back then you could murder someone and they wouldn't be as worried as if you broke parietals. That's most definitely not the case now. I would say that they're at least equal. I have never attempted to break parietals, although I know of several people who have done so with incredible success. There was one guy who had his girlfriend stay in his room from Thursday night until Sunday morning. However, that's extremely rare.</p>
<p>PCB, isn't the strictness or laxity of parietals a factor of the dorm, too? Some rectors are very strict, others are a lot more lax...</p>
<p>Back in the day, the priest who was rector to Pangborn used to go into rooms and turn on the lights ten minutes before parietals on a Friday night. I'm pretty sure he thought the presence of women was the downfall of the campus, and he wasn't going to have any of them hanging around his turf any more than he had to...</p>
<p>Kinda ironic they made his old domain into a women's dorm :)</p>
<p>I get the sense that the girls dorms are far more strict than the guys' dorms are, and that the guys dorms vary.</p>
<p>I'd definitely agree that the female dorms are more strict than the males' about parietals (and pretty much every other issue for that matter). I know plenty of girls who have stayed in a guy's room past 2am and then find some way to sneak out, but they would be much more hesitant to try it in their own dorm.</p>