<p>Are any of the houses in the commons better than the next? I got placed in Crawford.</p>
<p>from a very uninformed (also incoming frosh) standpoint, you can look at the letter that came with your room assignment. they give the general dimensions of rooms in each building. i got in ***in gillette.</p>
<p>Aw, moosecream, don’t be tooo disappointed with Gillette. It is one of the older (but still very recently renovated) dorms on the commons, but it’s not bad at all. Everyone ends up loving their dorm on commons no matter which one it is.</p>
<p>Hank Ingram is the biggest dorm (and in my opinion the best) on commons. It’s newer than the others by a year (not that it really matters, the new ones are all new, the renovated ones are all “new”).
Crawford, Stambaugh, Murray, and Sutherland are all just about as good as Hank, lol, and are all very nice. All these dorms mentioned are really reallllyyy spacious and amazing.</p>
<p>The renovated dorms are West house, North, East, Gillette, and Memorial. The dorm rooms aren’t as big as those in the aforementioned houses, but they’re still adequate. These were all renovated recently and are pretty nice (especially compared to dorms on other campuses). Nothing to be sad about getting.</p>
<p>agreed…please also keep in mind that the older renos on the Commons…like Crawford…are on the historic lawn on Peabody’s old campus that was designed by Stanford White…and that the location is excellent and central to access to Vanderibilt…and the lawns in front of this area are stunning and gathering places for freshmen. Much more “old Vanderbilt” but in a good way…unlike Stambaugh where my son lived…(gorgeous) but clearly brand new</p>
<p>Hank Ingram is the largest, newest, and the one all of the tours go through. Though it is so big that people don’t really try to take the time to meet their whole hall, let alone the whole building. And Tony Brown, the Ingram Head of house, is by far the worst head of house on the commons.</p>
<p>While most of the rooms in the older dorms are smaller than the new Commons dorms. There’s a few rooms that are actually a good deal bigger. And as somebody else already said, the older dorms are closer to main campus.</p>
<p>Why Tony Brown gets so much hate is beyond me. There was the thing with the alcohol pledge or whatever the hell it was, but whatever, that was years ago. He was my head of house last year and I loved him. He really loves the students and he and his wife are so nice. They do a great job getting the house involved within itself and organize so many fun things for the residents to do together. They have dinners in their little apartment-y area down on the second floor every month, etc. They’re great. I’ve never met anyone from my year at Vanderbilt who was not pleased with the job that the Browns did leading Hank house.</p>
<p>The older dorms are “closer” to main campus, but really not that much closer. Maybe a minute or two walking, it’s not too big of a deal.</p>
<p>It is true that in Hank a lot of the floors didn’t bond as much as the floors in other dorms - I mean, there were 60 girls on my hall. I knew probably half of them decently well and the other half would recognize and knew most of their names, but we weren’t close friends or anything. It’s definitely <em>possible</em> to get to know your whole hall even in Hank, but I don’t think as easy as it is in other dorms.</p>
<p>2 years ago, Tony Brown tried to pressure all of the students into signing a drinking pledge promising not to drink on or off campus. About a third signed it. Then on parents weekend, he put up the list so parents could see if their kid signed it. Vanderbilt told him he couldn’t do that again. Last year, he tried to make a program where he would give students gift cards if they turned in fake IDs. It didn’t have to be your own, he encouraged students to steal their roommates and turn it it. Vanderbilt also didn’t let him do that program. Then he had a meeting 3 days into orientation with all of the house, where he had gone on students facebooks and collected wall posts and statuses that had to do with drinking or parties. He then put all of these on a powerpoint presentation and showed it to everyone. That is going way too far.</p>
<p>Additionally, I’ve never met a person more focused on race, specifically the black race. I get that it’s his job to research African Americans, but there is no need to jam it down our throats in his head of house position with posts on commonplace. Go back and look at what he posted, literally every other one involved some form of black oppression in the US. </p>
<p>“Notre Dame has first black valedictorian” “2010 Florida Modern Day Slavery Museum” “Writer Daisy Hernandez to talk about how race affects women’s issues”. All of those sent to us in a period of 2 weeks. He also made several backhanded insults about the Greek system in my year in Ingram.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt puts him in a position of power to help freshman get accustomed to college life. He abuses that power by trying to instill personal values on alcohol and race. That’s why Tony Brown gets so much hate.</p>
<p>i lived in hank ingram last year and i think it was just ok. theres way too many people on each floor. *60 people 0.0 lol. </p>
<p>well to vandyclass, yea i have to agree that tony brown went overboard with the powerpoint stuff lol but personally he is really nice and helpful so idk it really depends i guess</p>
<p>so back to topic.</p>
<p>Gillette-sorry for whoever is assigned here. maybe the worst dorm of all. a lot of my friends lived here and really…corridors are way to small, rooms…compared to other dorms it is considerably smaller. </p>
<p>peresonally i really liked east house. i liked the way the main floor was set up with chairs and fire place and stuff. </p>
<p>pretty much inven summarized it all</p>
<p>I didn’t live in Gilette last year, but I had a tonnn of friends who did, and they all loved it. It’s what you make of it–it’s a bit older, but since it was a smaller house they became really close with everyone in there.</p>
<p>I lived in North and absolutely loved it. PBarz was a great head of house. Hank, on the other hand, was always more of a Slytherin to me.</p>
<p>My S lived on second floor Gillette last year and loved it. His hall was very close, and Sahi Denduluri, the Resident Advisor, was the highlight of the hall. “Sundays with Sahi” meant trips to places around campus and Nashville that my son wouldn’t have had access to or wouldn’t have enjoyed at such reduced prices without the cachet of Sahi. When S was pledging second semester, he missed some good times and was glad in March when he could rejoin the gang. His room was small, but because he and his roommate kept it neat (which shocked me), it was manageable. This year they’ll be smart enough not to have that second refrigerator taking up room.</p>
<p>Pretty much any place in Commons beats upperclass digs!!</p>
<p>There’s a pdf document from 07/08 called “Guide to the Assignment Process” that someone posted on the facebook group for my house (Sutherland). If you google it, it should come up. It gives the floor plans and dimensions of every room in every house except for Hank Ingram, because it wasn’t built then.</p>
<p>This booklet has a lot of information about the Commons Dorms:</p>
<p><a href=“Housing and Residential Experience | Vanderbilt University”>Housing and Residential Experience | Vanderbilt University;