<p>I'll be a frosh at Dartmouth in the fall. Anyway, I just read "I am Charlotte Simmons," which was sort of horrifying, and made me worry about dorm life. Alright. Anyone who knows about Dartmouth Housing arrangements please let me know.</p>
<p>1) Do you choose your dorm, or do you fill out some sort of form to get assigned to a dorm?</p>
<p>2) Are some dorms quieter than others? I am sort of an "early to bed, early to rise" person. My pattern at home has been to go to bed at 9:30 or so and get up at 5:30-6:00 to exercise. Will I have a problem going to bed that early? Will I have to change my habits?</p>
<p>3) Are there smoking dorms? I will admit that I smoke and use illicit substances, not every day, but some. I don't want to be looked down upon or barely tolerated by my roomate (And I know that smoke <em>is</em> bothersome to many people.) Also I don't want to be drinking every night or be around those who are.</p>
<p>4) When can you move off campus? Are there cheap apartments in the area? I happen to be an excellent cook, and I know I could live more cheaply on my own than with dorms + meal plan, but if you go off campus, does your EFC and financial aid change? (i.e., would it actually be more expensive?)</p>
<p>Julians, I just read I Am Charlotte Simmons too! It does make dorm life seem kind of scary, I don't want someone like Beverly as a roomate...
I'm also going to be a freshmen at Dartmouth in the fall, so I'm interested to hear some of these answers too. The only answer I have to one of your questions is the for the first one. I know that you have to fill out a long survey to match you up with a potential roommate. I heard its around 100 questions and you have to list five adjectives to describe yourself. I'm not sure if you can choose your dorm though.</p>
<p>1) You select which dorms you prefer. The choates and the river are predominantly first years. The nicer dorms (Fayerweathers, Mass row, gold coast) are mixed classes. Personally I preferred the social aspects of the choates. I felt I would have plenty of time for nice dorms (and I did.)</p>
<p>2) East Wheelock is a cluster that is much quieter and going to bed that early would be okay. </p>
<p>3) No smoking. The issue you have is you like to smoke but also go to bed early, unfortunately they sort of contradict. The choates and river you will find will be much more condusive to smoking illicits, but wont be nearly as quiet at East Wheelock.</p>
<p>4) After the first year. There are plenty of great off campus houses that have active social scenes. </p>
<p>Honestly Dartmouth housing was great. Most likely you will love it.</p>
<p>I should add too that there are a very few smoking dorms for freshmen (there are only one or two on campus, and there has been some talk of doing away with even these).</p>
<p>You can move off campus sophomore year (unless you get married beforehand). That said, there are some cheap off-campus apartments, but not many. It's Hanover, and Hanover tends to be fairly expensive. Your EFC will not go up (they assume that their housing and meals allowance is reasonable, and if you don't spend it on-campus you'll be spending it off-campus).</p>
<p>If you're really concerned about it being quiet, and if you keep that odd of a schedule, you probably want to apply for East Wheelock, or make it very clear on your housing application that you keep such hours and want a very quiet roommate.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Approximately one half of the freshman class will live in the River or Choats Dorms.</p></li>
<li><p>As freshmen, you do not get to choose where you want to live freshman year with the exception of:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>[li] The choice as to whether or not you want to live substance free. Butterfield and Russell Sage are substance free communities. First-year students are assigned primarily to triple rooms in Russell Sage, which is a mixed class community. Butterfield is all upperclass. Here, most upperclass students live in single rooms, and two-room triple and double rooms. The Hyphen, which connects Russell Sage with Butterfield, provides a kitchen, TV room, and common meeting space for cluster residents.</p>[/li]
<p>[li] Smoke free - Gile is smoke-free[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>As Wisconsinguy says the is a move toward making almost all of the dorms smoke free. </p>
<p>The housing questionnaire is pretty short and asks questions such as if you are an early riser, neat freak, you need noise or quiet etc.</p>
<p>You pretty much keep the room that you aare assigned to freshman year for the entire year.</p>
<p>Sophmore year you go into the housing draw.</p>
<p>So if you request substance free on your questionnaire, then its almost guaranteed that you will be placed in either Butterfield or Russel Sage? </p>
<p>Also, are the Choates and river dorms considered "loud" or "noisy"--I've heard that these two have the best community feel for freshmen....is this true? </p>
<p>What are people's thoughts on requesting a single or having a roommate? </p>
<p>My interviewer said yesterday that the choates and river, since they were furthest away/most isolated, the people there end up being closer to each other, so yes, it'd be called the "best community feel"</p>
<p>Quick question: How far away are the Choates and the River from everything else? I think that I would prefer to live in one of the freshmen communities, but I don't want to freeze to death walking a mile to class each morning.</p>
<p>I think that far becomes a relative term. My daughter first told me that EW was sooo far away from everything . When I saw it for my self, it really wan't that bad as EW Street is goes directly past the Hanover Inn, and leads into Main street (into town). It was a nice little walk. But she says that it's a bit of a walk to get to other buildings.
I walked down to the River dorms when I was there, it is a bit far, but I also beleive that aftertime people get used to it. Everything is a nice walk in the spring summer and fall and a brutal walk in the middle of winter.</p>
<p>FountainSiren,
I would not go as far as to say that you are guaranteed to be placed any where because each year it is a matter of supply and demand. If there are a lot of people applying to sub-free this fall, and the spaces are limited, everyone is not going to get into those dorms (daughter has a lot of freinds who applied to EW last year and are living on the river and in the choates). While housing is guaranteed for freshmen, know one really knows if the confiuration of housing is going to change from year to year depending on the needs of the student body.
Butterfield is for upperclassemen, only it you request Sub-Free, right now Russel-Sage houses freshmen in sub free dorms.</p>
<p>the first year configuration is as follows: </p>
<p>[ul]
[li]1st floor 4 rooms there are 2 male/2 female -(2 room triples ) triples for women) total 12 people</p>[/li]
<p>[li]2nd Floor 4 rooms 2 male/2 female-(2 room triples ) total 12 people</p>[/li]
<p>[li]3rd floor 3 rooms 1/ male 2 female (2 room triples) total 9 people</p>[/li]
<p>[li]4th floor 5 rooms 3 male/2 female (2 room triples) total 15 people</p>[/li]
<p>[/ul]</p>
<p>P.S. Athena is going to be working in freshmen housing over the summer. She can probably give you more insight has the year goes on.</p>