Guys,
I have applied to transfer to several ivy league universities as well as Johns Hopkins for Fall 2016 and during this waiting time I am wondering what in the world one has to do once you get an acceptance letter. Here are my questions if anyone has any input/comments to them!
- Once the acceptance letter is sent, it tells you to return your response to the university and it tells you of what the next steps are in the process of getting everything prepared. Is there like an orientation day/college visit scheduled for accepted students and what happens during orientation?
- When do you register for classes? Do you have like an advisor to help you plan your classes?
- How do you get settled into your dorms and do you get keys or card keys for dorms? Can you change the room around in terms of the furniture? Can you add things to the wall like bookcases, posters, white boards?
- After applying for housing and dining you get the info of where you are going to live. Can you live in your dorm during summer/off semester times or do you HAVE to go home?
- Do you typically have to buy textbooks at the school's bookstore or can you get them anywhere?
- Is there a time limit of how many hours you can work a week?
- What is the usual bedtime for students at Ivy league schools? Do you typically get little sleep?
- Are there typically music rooms/pianos you can use to learn music? I love playing the piano but only at a basic level. Are there music/art rooms you can use with all the equipment you could need?
- Are there usually a lot of parties and are they just in the dorms?
- Do students typically go out at night to bars/clubs and is there a curfew to when you have to be in your dorm?
- If you have your own car, would you even need it or is everything fairly within distance? Is there parking available for student's car or is it just best to leave it at home?
- Is there free WiFi? Are there any ethernet ports available for desktop computers? Is it best to just have a laptop?
- Can you bring your own TV? How about your own furniture?
- Can you bring gaming consoles?
- Do you have your own mailbox in case parents want to send you packages?
- If I can't take everything I need, can I have it sent to me by mail? (packages)
Any insight would be much appreciated. These questions apply to Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, UPenn and Johns Hopkins.
Please be welcomed to share any stories/experiences that will help provide any interesting details, they don’t even have to apply to the above schools 
A lot of the answers to these questions will be sent to you once you confirm that you are going to a particular school. The school will most likely give you an email address, which you should check often. I don’t go to an Ivy, but at least around here about 80% of official outside-class communication (with professors, teammates, coaches, advisors, music directors, etc) is through email. But on to your specific questions:
- Whether there is an “accepted students day” prior to orientation depends on the school. You will most likely receive an invitation if there is one, so don’t worry about missing it.
- Since registration for most colleges is online now you will be notified of the day and time you should register for classes. Do so quickly and as close to the announced time as possible. Certain classes fill up quickly. Usually you will be assigned an advisor who you can email with questions before registering (at my school, we have a first-year advisor for the first semester, then when we declare we get a major-specific advisor. Once again, it depends). But also, pay attention to any emails or mailings you get. There may be a link to some documentation of what classes you should register for. This may even be specific to your major, although I think Ivies require more gen-eds than engineering schools, so it may not be specific, but you will definitely receive some guidelines before you have to register.
- Usually you will get your room assignment well in advance so you can get to know your roommates a bit and arrange who is bringing what (mostly small appliances, e.g. microwaves, which you don’t need duplicates of). You will pick up your ID and key at orientation, most likely, and some nice upperclassmen will help you and your parents lug all your stuff to your room. For us at least, the first day of orientation was entirely getting settled in and set up. Unless it’s bolted down or attached to the wall, most dorm furniture can be moved around. My room had a weird arrangement when we got there but soon everything made a lot more sense. As for putting stuff on the wall, check the dorm rules (believe me, those will definitely be distributed and harped upon). For us as long as you don’t have to drill into the wall and it doesn’t provide a significant fire hazard, it is fine.
- Once again, depends on the school. Since we have quarters, the system might be a little different, but for us summer and winter break you aren’t allowed to stay (you can pay for summer housing, but that’s usually in a different dorm) but fall and winter break you can, although it’s usually creepily empty. Also remember you will probably live in a different place each year.
- Usually you can get textbooks anywhere as long as you get the correct edition and access codes to online content, if required. The main exception is if the professor publishes their own materials, but these are usually less expensive than a whole textbook, since they are often sold at cost.
- That I don’t know.
- Once again, not sure about Ivies, but here bedtime for most is between 10 PM and 2 AM, with the average around 11 or midnight. If you plan your time well, you will be able to sleep.
- Check with each school. Most music buildings have some practice rooms, and those typically have pianos (often horrendously out of tune). Classrooms and stuff with art supplies or music equipment (I’m assuming you mean percussion or somesuch) are usually reserved for actual groups since these things are easily damaged. But check about getting access, or register for an art/music class/music group/lessons. Most places have at least one of these.
- I think this depends on the college. In my dorm, drinking if it happens at all is pretty secretive except on Saturday nights, and even then it’s not really loud parties so much as people being jerkier than usual. Parties are usually hosted at off-campus homes or frat houses. Frat parties are heavily regulated by the school, though.
- There is no curfew here (not sure about the schools you mentioned) but we do have “quiet hours” from 11 PM to 6 AM on weeknights. Basically, avoid making any noise that would disturb people.
- I would leave your car at home, at least for the first year. You would probably have to pay for a parking pass and unless the campus is really spread out there is no need for a car. Often parking lots are further from your classrooms than your dorm. Only exception would be if you want to drive home a lot and your parents don’t want to pick you up all the time. Another factor to consider is the fact that all of those schools except Hopkins are in places that can get pretty heavy snow/ice. Do you really want to deal with that?
- Another “depends on the school” question. Here Wifi is free and fairly good quality, despite the fact that the dorm was built in 1926 and the walls are therefore lined with lead. You have to pay for an ethernet connection here.
- Yes to TV, usually no on the furniture. Residential Services considers it a safety hazard and honestly you won’t have room anyway.
- Yes. If that wasn’t allowed half of our student population would be catatonic
15./16. Yes, you will get your very own mailbox and address, and your parents will be able to send whatever you need/forget (or order you stuff from Amazon.)
Sorry for the long post, but I hope it helps! Good luck with getting in, and with your first year!
@GoatGirl19 Thanks so much for all the info!!! You have no idea how helpful it is to me! What university are you at? Do you like the dorm life?
A typical Ivy League dorm day consists of being awoken by Jenkins (your assigned butler), downing a strong tonic and entering a bath Jenkins has drawn for you. Next, you will be dressed in only the finest tweeds and lobster-print trousers before being whisked away in a Rolls-Royce to a delightful nook for a 5 course breakfast and a spot of polo. After the brisk jaunt on horse back, you’ll share a Rolls-Royce with your choice of a Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, or Bush to a class taught by a noble-laureate with the white hair of a chia pet.
@Mandalorian HAHAHA very funny.
Anyone else have any input?
The first post basically hit the nail on the head. Ivy League colleges don’t really have their own sets of rules so I think the answers to your questions would, for the most part, be the same no matter where you go. But for what it’s worth (and mainly because I’m procrastinating doing my work) I’ll answer your questions based on my own experience (which is probably similar to the first post). For the record, I go to Cornell.
- Cornell has Cornell Days where accepted students can visit, check out the campus, go to information sessions, sit in on classes, eat in the dining halls, etc. I went even though I was already committed to Cornell. Orientation is different; it happens in the few days before classes starts and is for new students to meet with advisors and meet other students.
- At Cornell, registration is done by year (so seniors choose classes before juniors, etc.) and is held considerably in advance of the following semester. For example, I'll be registering for fall classes next week. You get a faculty advisor who can help you plan out your classes, and freshmen get a peer advisor who can give their input as well.
- I'm not really sure what you mean by getting settled into your dorms -- it takes a bit of getting used to, I guess, but after a while your dorm room is sort of your home and it becomes very familiar. At Cornell, your Cornell ID opens your dorm. This year because of the dorm I'm living I also have keys. You can move furniture around; for example I changed the orientation of my bed and my desk in my room. There are certain rules for what you can and cannot add to the walls. Posters and white boards are generally fine, so are photographs and other decorative items. I'm not sure you would be allowed to have a bookcase on your wall but I guess I can't really picture it!
- Dorms generally close during winter break and summer break. At Cornell, there is one dorm that stays open over winter break where international students can stay. Once you move off campus and get a lease to an apartment, often your lease runs 12 months and you can stay year-round.
- You can get them anywhere, and I would highly recommend NOT getting them at the bookstore because they will be ridiculously overpriced. Try to find them used online somewhere. The Cornell store website offers you price comparisons of all your textbooks so you can find the cheapest option.
- Do you mean work as in an on-campus job? That'll depend on your job and how many hours they can offer you. There might actually be a maximum for work-study jobs too but I'm not sure what it is off the top of my head (much more than my job can offer).
- I typically can't stay up doing work very late. I try to go to bed around 11 or 12 on weeknights. Weekends anything is fair game, although even then I'm usually in bed by 2 or 3. This isn't true for some students; many stay up late on weeknights as well. I actually have gotten quite a bit of sleep this semester because my classes don't start until 10 or 11.
- At Cornell you can use the practice rooms in the music building, and I would assume the same is true of other colleges as well. My dorm last year also had pianos and practice rooms, and my dorm this year has a piano as well.
- There are a lot of parties here, but they aren't in the dorms unless you're just hanging out with a couple friends. If you go into collegetown on almost any weekend you can find a ton of open parties (although it usually helps to know someone there). Frats hold a lot of open parties in the fall semester (fewer in the spring semester although there are still some). In peak party season you could probably find somewhere to go almost every day of the week, although I wouldn't recommend this
- People go out to bars a lot, although not a lot of people have fakes at Cornell compared to other colleges from what I've noticed, probably because of how easy it is to just go to frat parties. But people 21+ and the people who do have fakes go to bars usually Wednesday-Saturday on a regular basis. There's no curfew for being back in your dorm, but the bars in Ithaca close at 1.
- Parking is generally pretty expensive and awful at Cornell, although some people bring cars. You can get everywhere by walking or taking the bus, which is free for first-year students 24/7 and is free for upperclassmen on weekdays after 6 and all day on weekends.
- WiFi is free but sometimes slow. Some dorms have ethernet ports I think but don't quote me on that. Definitely bring a laptop.
- I don't know if you would be able to get cable in the dorms at Cornell; at the very least I don't know anyone on campus with a TV. You can bring some furniture, like a comfortable chair or a mini fridge. There won't be space in your room for a ton of extra stuff.
- Yep; they can probably be used in the lounges of your dorm.
- I have my own mailbox for paper mail and then your dorm will have a place for you to pick up packages as well.
- You could have it sent by mail or what a lot of students do is just buy a lot of what they need once they get to college. Then they can store it here over the breaks as well.
I hope that was helpful! It definitely distracted me from my work long enough!
@Ranza123 Thank you so much for all the info! I definitely have a good idea of what to do/what not to do once the time comes
I’m glad it distracted you enough haha
@goatgirl19 and @ranza123 have given you a good overview. There will be some minor differences depending upon the university, but in general, the answers supplied will apply not to just Ivy League schools, but to all schools that have dorms. When you get accepted to a college if you want to get the specifics, ask in that college’s forum.
@skieurope yes I surely will 