<p>My son has been accepted at SC Columbia for Fall 2010.
Does anyone have any recomindations on freshman housing choices?</p>
<p>bates west, columbia and capstone are usually the favorite fresman dorms. they are all suite style housing.
To live in Capstone, your son must be a Capstone scholar.</p>
<p>My dtr is a Freshman now and likes Maxy. Although the room she got is TINY! There are some huge rooms too and they are all suite style.</p>
<p>Senior S lived in Maxcy when it was freshman honors housing.He also had the tiniest room while others had enormous rooms but really enjoyed the experience of living in the building…its a good size for freshman housing,not too big or small.</p>
<p>My d mentioned that they will be renovating Patterson next year, so that will be out of the mix.</p>
<p>(Of course Patterson is a women’s dorm so wouldn’t be an option for the OP anyway, but in case any other prospective students are reading this…)</p>
<p>Thanks All for the replies.
It will give us something to start narrowing down the list with</p>
<p>Yes, Patterson will be offline next year as it gets some (MUCH NEEDED) reservations. For freshman housing, you can’t go wrong pretty much I would say. All the dorms are relatively similar. I would caution against living in Bates/Bates West or The Roost if your child is the type to see rain or know it’s cold out and stay inside instead of going to class. I know I could never live there because it’s just too tempting.</p>
<p>Solid choices:</p>
<p>Columbia
Maxcy
Capstone (if Capstone Scholar)
Preston
McBryde (This is where I live. It’s older and it gets a lot of flack from students, but I really like it. Our rooms are big (12 x 12), it’s right in the middle of campus (10 minutes max. to all my classes, and it has everything I need.)</p>
<p>Any current students; what are the pro’s/con’s of living in a high rise such as Capstone?</p>
<p>Son lived in Capstone a couple of years ago as a freshman.
Pros: At that time, Capstone grouped students by floor according to major. So the folks on his floor were all engineering majors, easy to find friends to study with. Capstone also has a very good dining hall on the first floor: Gibbes Court. Shuttle stops right out front.
Cons: The higher up you go, the higher the humidity in the rooms. I heard they fill from the bottom up according to reservation date (not sure if that’s true.) Son was on 4th or 5th floor, so humidity wasn’t much of a problem. You have to wait for the elevators if you’re on an upper floor - long waits on move-in day.
Although all rooms are wired to the campus computer network, it seems like there was something about iffy wireless computer access at that time, but that was a couple of years ago. Columbia had a computer lab. Not much difference at all between living in Capstone or Columbia as far as the buildings go. He had a lot of friends in Columbia Hall, too.
Overall, he was very pleased with the Capstone experience.</p>
<p>My freshman son lives in McBryde. The rooms are good size, but the building is old and he is anxious to get out of there for next year. When I heard all the horrible things about McBryde last summer, I was worried, but he has made the best of it. It is very close to everything - the library and eating places. But I would put that as a last choice. This was choice #4 on his list. Good luck! Freshman year is an interesting, but great experience for them.</p>
<p>Currently living in Capstone. By far the most convenient residence, unless your son has classes in the engineering building. The cafeteria downstairs, Gibbes, is very convenient and generally really good. The elevators can be a pain, but it’s a relatively small complaint. I would certainly take the stairs if I lived below the 5th floor (I’m on the 10th).
I honestly would not want to live anywhere else as a freshman, even the new Honors dorm, since their rooms are smaller, and the residence is far away from everything except Russell House, which is the student center of sorts.</p>