<p>Hey, just wondering if anybody has any reviews about the Vanderbilt Commons/ dorms, including good and bad, and if somebody could compare them to other schools including Northwestern. Thanks!</p>
<p>Commons dorms. You have basically died and gone to heaven. All refurbished from top to bottom on the older lovely lawn of the historic Peabody Quad designed by Stanford White if you are in the older Commons buildings…location is good, rooms are smaller than the new buildings on the new Commons. All Green. All thought out well. </p>
<p>new Commons dorms…have high ceilings and good closets and good ventilation and lovely views. And everything is three years old when you arrive. Also these buildings are all life sized. By that I mean that there are no ugly highrises for freshmen. </p>
<p>After freshman year, housing at Vanderbilt is OK and some of the dorms are on lovely quads and pathways but on the interior…no longer worthy of fawning over or bragging about and some dorms (Kissam) are dismal and slated for being torn down but alas not in time for my son or for you. </p>
<p>In fact my son lived in Kissam a summer session in Kissam’s mildewy smelling single rooms (former barracks) where millions of summer camps have passed through before him. And he may end up there again after returning from abroad. He is quite cheery about this so what do I care. Just saying. There are transitional times like summer school or when you are in transition from abroad where you will live wherever they put you and there is a vacancy. By junior and senior years, you are likely in housing with your best friends and happy no matter what anyhow.</p>
<p>Evanston is a lovely college town but I have never seen the undergraduate dorms, can’t comment. Go to the college…Northwestern or Vanderbilt where you feel your heart skip a beat and you feel you can focus best on excelling in the classroom. Nashville is no Chicago so you will need to decide if this is Good or Bad! :)<br>
In January this is good (less bitter weather)
You can’t beat Spring at Vanderbilt re weather.</p>
<p>Faline2, my D ended up in Carmichael Towers after study abroad. It wasn’t as nice as Vandy-Barnard, where she lived the previous year, but it beat being Kissamed! However, she would have considered being stuck in Kissam a fair trade for the incredible study abroad experience she had! :)</p>
<p>Actually, I disagree with the statements on here regarding Vanderbilt dorms. I think housing at Vanderbilt is great even after freshman year. </p>
<p>I am a current junior at Vanderbilt and was part of the first freshman class to live on the Commons from 2008-2009. The Commons is beautiful, and is arguably the best freshman living experience in the entire country–especially at comparable schools such as Northwestern or Emory. The Commons dorms are beautiful, new, furnished wonderfully, and each house typically forms its own identity as the year progresses (Hank Ingram, Stambaugh, East, Sutherland, North, etc.). It’s on a beautiful part of the Vandy campus (but then again… what part isn’t beautiful?), unlike the freshman dorms at Duke, which are on a rather ugly side of campus that they don’t typically show on tours. This is what I saw when I visited. WashU and Northwestern have nice campuses, but the freshman dorms are nowhere near on par with Vanderbilt’s.</p>
<p>After freshman year, I think Vanderbilt has a great deal of different living possibilities. I personally lived in a Mayfield apartment on campus as a sophomore, which meant I lived with 9 of my friends in a 10 person apartment on Highland Quad. We all had single rooms, a living room, one bathroom on each floor with a shower, and a kitchen. It was amazing. Kissam, as some of the members above are complaining about, did have mold problems a few years ago, but has since been completely renovated in terms of ventilation and windows/tiling, and they have also added exercise equipment and small grocery/“munchie” marts in Kissam Quad. It’s not the “mildew” experience it once was. All rooms there are single rooms, which many students prefer over having a roommate.</p>
<p>Other options for sophomores include Vanderbilt/Barnard Halls, which include single and double rooms, McGill (a house you must apply to live in based on contributing something to “The McGill Project,” an ongoing event that showcases the talent and creativity of its members throughout the year), Cole and Tolman (women-only and men-only dorms with single rooms, respectively), and Branscomb Quad, which is composed of double rooms and is one of my favorite places to live (I live here now in a giant room). It is attached to the Student Life Center which has a Starbucks and another grocery/“munchie” mart.</p>
<p>Juniors typically stay in Branscomb or upgrade to on-campus apartments. Very few students live off campus. Because housing is based on a lottery system, it is rare for sophomores to get these more sophisticated living arrangements due to being based on seniority. Seniors almost always get their pick of the litter, so to speak. They usually move on to these same on-campus apartments that juniors vie for, but they don’t have to worry about getting lucky in the lottery.</p>
<p>On-campus apartments include: 6-person apartments in Towers, which are two single rooms, two double rooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen and living room. There are also 3-person apartments in Morgan/Lewis in Highland Quad, which are one double room, one single room, a bathroom, a kitchen, a storage closet, and a living room. Two-person apartments are one double room, one kitchen, one bathroom, one living room, and a storage closet, and are also in Morgan/Lewis Houses in Highland Quad. There are also 4-person apartments in Highland Quad called Chaffins, similar to the Mayfields in that they are stand-alone buildings. They have two double rooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom. Some are two stories and some are one-story, and each of them have a balcony with chairs and a table. There are also singles and doubles in Towers that some upperclassmen choose to go for if they don’t have other options.</p>
<p>Anyway, the sheer amount of living options at Vanderbilt is fantastic, from typical “dorms” to apartment-style high-rises to stand-alone buildings that are nearly house-like. The opportunity to participate in things like Mayfield Projects or the McGill Project throughout the year is amazing, as well as the VIP (Vanderbilt Interest Project) program in Vanderbilt/Barnard Halls and the CCC (Creative Campus Community) in Kissam.</p>
<p>Go Dores!</p>
<p>what a great insight from an upperclassman…thank you for the informative and positive post!</p>
<p>All I know is, my D was thrilled to get an off campus housing pass her senior year. :)</p>
<p>There are also singles and doubles in Towers that some upperclassmen choose to go for if they don’t have other options.</p>
<hr>
<p>Or go to because that is what gets chosen for them …</p>
<p>One of my kids heard Chancellor Zeppos give a presentation on the next step in housing upgrades the other day, the replacement of the Kissam Quad. I remember seeing an architectural rendering in the online edition of The Hustler several years ago, but of course that has been “back burnered” since the recession. I think it’s about to move forward again, but I don’t know a timeline. It’s entirely likely to have the first phase underway for the class entering next fall. They likely won’t get to live in the new upperclass dorms but I’m sure that will mean there will be another period of years where more seniors are permitted to live off campus as the old Kissam Quad dorms come down for replacement in phases and they may be part of that wave. I hate to be a negative to jymcclellan’s wonderful post above, but the mold problem isn’t entirely solved in the Kissam dorms. We have family friends whose sophomore D had to be moved from her next to the bathroom room earlier this year because of water/mold issues.</p>
<p>On the New Kissam: [The</a> new Kissam: “Branscomb on Steroids” | InsideVandy](<a href=“Inside Vandy: Vanderbilt University's student news source”>Inside Vandy: Vanderbilt University's student news source)</p>
<p>wow thanks for all the info everybody! I’m starting to look more seriously at Vanderbilt now because it seems like Northwestern hasn’t offered me any financial aid, whereas Vanderbilt has offered me a full tuition scholarship. So it looks like I might be living in nashville in the fall!</p>
<p>Is there any special application etc that we might need to do for the commons? Any special items you might recommend bringing?</p>
<p>caitl294,</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean about special application…All first year students live in The Commons.</p>
<p>^ So I suppose it is a sort of lottery system that places students in their rooms and dorms? I know some schools have housing questionnaires for roommate/ specific dorm assignments, etc.</p>
<p>There is a housing questionnaire.
If you don’t want to go the lottery route, you can try to find someone to room with via Facebook or other avenues.
You will not choose the house/floor on which you will live.</p>
<p>Great, detailed housing description JWMcLellan - wish more upperclassmen for all colleges would contribute like that. My S is a sophomore (lives in Branscomb- loves it) and just got his housing assignment for next year (Towers suite). He said he is sharing with a couple of seniors from his fraternity so I think that is a useful tidbit - make friends with upperclassmen to boost your chances! 
And anything compared to the awful NYU dorm we visited is a four star! Also, for freshman, my S read all of the posts looking for roommates on facebook but then chose to have a randomly selected roommate and it was a good experience, gaining a great friend as well.</p>