what's bad about residential colleges

<p>Check out this article in last Friday's Yale Herald...........</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=4702%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=4702&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I don't think I quite understand what you guys mean by residential colleges. . . Doesn't that just mean that you live in dorms? Or is it based on what major you are in??</p>

<p>they're "dorms" but so much more.
an no, there's no major 'limit' or anything</p>

<p>bigU212 - yes, they're dorms, but there are a few unique features:</p>

<p>1) they're randomly assigned (so no, not based on majors)
2) you stay in the same residential college for all four years. people do transfer, but it's rare. your residential college sort of forms your family away from home.
3) each residential college has its own unique facilities - all have dining halls & courtyards and such, but some have printing presses, pottery studios, darkrooms, music practice rooms, gyms, etc.</p>

<p>the main thing though is that it puts you together with a group of people with whom you're associated from your first day through graduation, and I've found that this creates a wonderful sense of community. the residential colleges are one of my absolute favorite parts of yale :-)</p>

<p>oh, and tennisdude - annexing basically means that a small number of juniors are forced to live outside the college because the college doesn't have enough space. preference for rooms in the colleges is given to seniors, the sophomores, then juniors, and if there aren't enough rooms for all the juniors, some have to live on old campus (or this year, in Harrison Court). students still remain connected with their college, eating in their dining hall & playing intramurals etc., but have to live in separate dorms.</p>

<p>Yale has, my opinion, a fairly bad housing shortage. For pretty much all of the colleges, there will be a few people who will be annexed. For my college, Saybrook College, I believe two suites (or 10 or 12 people) will be annexed. In smaller colleges, it's even worse. In Trumbull, something like half to three quarters of the junior class will be annexed.</p>