<p>We had a very nice visit to Amherst this past week. A beautiful school, and really nice people. Before our official tour, though, we wandered around a bit by ourselves. I was wondering about the buildings around Crossett, Pond, Davis, and Stone Halls. They seemed really run-down compared to the rest of the campus. Are those primarily freshman and sophmore dorm? How are they on the inside? The only dorms building we went into was the new and shiny Pratt dorm. I know the tours only want to show you the good stuff, but I’m sure the odds are much higher that a freshman will end up down in the funky buildings… right? Would love to know more about likely freshman housing, and not just the <em>best</em> freshman housing.</p>
<p>Actually all the freshman dorms are really nice. Charles Pratt is a freshman dorm and so are James, Stearns, North, South, Appleton and Williston. Crossett, Pond, Davis and Stone are actually upperclassman (maybe sophomore too?) housing. The reason those buildings look more run down is because those are the "social dorms" which basically means a lot of parties are thrown there and as the name implies, are social gathering places. But the people who live there generally WANT to live there...for obvious reasons. Generally speaking, if you want nice housing, you can probably get it. But there are many reasons for choosing some of the older dorms.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response! We were so impressed by the niceness of everyone there.</p>
<p>All of the freshmen housing is amazing. Stearns and James are almost as good as Pratt, and about 2/3 of the frosh live in one of those three dorms. The socials are actually scheduled to be redone at some point in the future. It's also extremely unlikely that you would get into them if you didn't want to, they have very few sophomores as well.</p>
<p>The freshman dorm that has gone the longest since being renovated is Appleton, and it was renovated only 8 years ago and is excellent, as are all of the freshman living options. Last year, some freshman had to live in modular housing (read: trailers) which were amusingly named Plaza and Waldorf-Astoria. Now those have been converted to spacious singles for upperclassmen.</p>
<p>Stone, Crossett, Pond, Davis, and Coolidge are the "social dorms", and they are where a lot of parties occur. Those are for sophomores and up. They are not as nice as some of the other dorms, but as Entendu said, people choose to live there because of what goes on in those dorms, not because of the buildings themselves. I have also heard that they are in line for renovation, but I'm not sure if/when that's happening. I know that the Triangle (Seelye, Mayo-Smith, and Hitchcock houses), which are kitty-corner to the bus stop across Pleasant street and Route 9, are going to be renovated over the next two years. Those houses are primarily for juniors and seniors.</p>
<p>I'm wondering about the dorm rooms that were shown me in a newly renovated building (don't know the name). Thery were a double for frosh. From the hall we walked onto one room and then walked through that room into the second room. The second room did not have a separate door onto the hall. </p>
<p>I would not want to have to walk through someone's room to get to mine and I wouldn't want someone walking through my room. How does this work out? What was the idea behind it? Do people like this arrangement?</p>
<p>And we noticed the trailers. Will there always be trailers, or is Amherst going to build more new dorms? I heard they are expnding the size of the student body.</p>
<p>The dorms rooms you saw are called two-room doubles. Their purpose is to give you the benefits of having a roommate while allowing each of you some private space.
The trailers will continue to be used while the college is renovating some of its older dorms. I'm not sure how much longer that will be, but they are now all upperclass singles and not actually that bad.</p>
<p>Two-room doubles are very desirable. My friend fit a couch in his, along with bed, desk, dresser, etc.</p>
<p>You don't have to sleep in different rooms. You could both sleep in the first room and use the second as a study/common area. It's quite convenient.</p>