In terms of location, accommodation and other factors which of the six House Communities is best for an incoming freshman? I understand that first-year students are randomly assigned house memberships and live on first-year floors affiliated with their House Community. I believe this is a new system. Any thoughts or insight would be great.
My daughter is a '22 and is in School House. Living in North Fay this year. It is all freshman, great location centrally located east of the green. They all have pro’s and cons. My D is very happy. South is a little farther as well as west- but we are talking 3 blocks vs 2 blocks.
D is a '22 in East Wheelock. They are some of the nicer dorms on campus, but my D wishes it was closer to FOCO. The campus is really not that big even though she acts like she is crossing Antarctica when it’s cold and snowy, LOL. I agree with @oscar63, they all have pros and cons.
The House Communities are largely irrelevant for a freshman. For the most part, they just dictate which dorms students will then live in after freshman year. A large number of freshman (or first year students, as they now insist on calling it) live in all-freshman dorms. This would be the clusters of dorms that make up what they call “the Choates” and “the River.” So for instance, my son is a '22 living in Cohen dorm, which is part of the Choates. Everyone on his hallway is then assigned to the same House Community – so he happens to be in School House, but the hallway above his could be assigned to, for instance, Allen House. This is completely irrelevant to him now, but means that next year, he would only be able to live in the dorms that comprise School house (the Mass Row dorms or Hitchcock). But he loves living in a dorm that’s just freshman, and also likes that he’s made friends with other freshman in the Choates who will then go off to different House dorms next year and he’ll have friends in all the Houses.
Then there are freshman who live on freshman only floors, but in dorms that have other age students on other floors. These would be the dorms that are in the McLaughlin cluster and the East Wheelock cluster. McLaughlin is like the Choates and the River in that freshman in that are assigned to different Houses. I believe that East Wheelock is the only situation where freshman live in the dorms that are also part of their House Community (so in other words, while they live on freshman-only floors, they live in the same dorms that also make up the House Community that they are assigned to).
At any rate, it’s all random assignment, so there’s not much you can do about it anyway.
West House is the Best House!