<p>Many of the parents of daughters that I know do think about the social aspect of college life as well as the academic, i.e. the dating pool, or in other words, the very un-PC concept of College as a Place to Find a Potential Mate! Most value a diverse student population, yes, but also as other threads on this forum attest, a critical mass of students from their own ethnic or cultural background, either at the college itself or at nearby campuses in the area. And yes, I know people who feel this way more so for girls than boys, although I don't agree that that should be the case.</p>
<p>I was thinking about this thread and started questioning if I was more concerned about safety or anything gender specific with my daughter more then my son after I had posted that there wasn't much difference. I think that with my daughter, like a lot of first child experiences, EVERYTHING about looking at colleges was new and important. </p>
<p>My daughter wanted a college with an excellent chance of a study abroad, challenging program, education certificate that would work in PA, and diverse student body. Son wanted some computer science/IT majors (this changed after acceptances came back), liberal arts, no rural campuses, nice dorms. I had no idea that he cared about dorms until he came back from an overnight at Allegheny and gave small dorms as one thing he didn't like. So, those things were priorities but I don't think they were gender specific.</p>
<p>My D is an only child, so there are no sons to compare differences I might or might not have... but here is my list:
*safety (very important)
*good "fit" for her - laid-back, somewhat liberal, intellectually stimulating
*rigorous academics, but not to the extreme that she has to sacrifice sleep & all social activities
*NOT a "party school" atmosphere & not a huge emphasis on sports
*choral music participation available to non-music majors
*study abroad opportunity
*male>female ratio a plus, but a very minor consideration</p>
<p>difference for me is that my two sons didn't ask -- picked their schools, their housing, their classes, did fine, and never looked back; daughter wants my support/assurance each step of the way ... that said, she's headed off for the same eccentric urban LAC as son #2. We'll see.</p>
<p>We kept in mind gay friendlyness
The campus- the profs- the larger community.
SHe wasn't intrested in any of the womens colleges, which are pretty much a nobrainer choice, but she found a friendly coed school( wiht coed housing and bathrooms) in a gay friendly city</p>
<p>my parents r worried for my safety ive always been picked on by someone at all my schools since forever at first i thought it was my sped ness but im still picked on at my sped schooL(theres kids that r more spedier then me!)</p>
<p>my parents want a real small school...for me but nope</p>
<p>for safety Hofstra U one of the local private universities is completely out of the question...b/c its in pretty much the ghetto of Long Island no offence i love Hofstra i went to day camp there but the area around it r not SAFE!</p>
<p>PARTying my parents r like uhhhh my child partying? but im kind of a combo of both my sisters(whom were polar opposites) middle sister has the popular happy skinny party girl but oldest sister has the quiet goes out for a drink occasionally likes comedy clubs only goes to bars or if dragged or if she knows people in the band going shes not a heavy drinker..
how im like both my sisters: Im not that popular, and im quiet at school...but noisy at the same time but i love to party</p>
<p>Mother wanted the following (Dad way out of picture- more laid back)</p>
<p>1) Safety at night- are there enough lights? Will the security help me?</p>
<p>2) Enough alumnae and upper-classwomen for role models, for me to look up to</p>
<p>3) Sense of community among the women that lasts beyond college years</p>
<p>The rest could be applied to men too so I'm not going to name them. She just believes in the power of women's network... Worked for her when I went to Smith. Then when I said I was transferring out, she totally protested! I compromised with her that I would join a sorority at my new school to maintain that "sisterhood." Now she's happy as a clam with my sorority membership.</p>
<p>thats interesting tickle
cause I think in general the womens colleges seem quite a bit different than the universities that have sororities</p>
<p>security was something we wanted info on
While D school was in a generally safe neighborhood, she often stayed in her lab very late, and I liked that if she wanted, she could ask security to escort her home ( which she felt comfortable doing)</p>
<p>hate to bring this up, but begs thought nevertheless -- our local CC is in a generally safe area, well-lit and all, and Security officers in golf-carts are only a phone-call away -- then last year it turned out one of our security guys had been sexually harrassing women who called for his help; he wasn't stopped till charged and found guilty of forcible rape (on the job).</p>
<p>emeraldkity, gay-friendly is good, and I've always heard D's college is, but D is straight (well, actually, too soon to say but seems more interested in guys though she's too shy to act on it) and it appears her roommate-to-be isn't. D doesn't know this yet and I'll let her make this discovery on her own, but I suspect she'll be uncomfortable. My point being, colleges don't assign men and women as roommates, yet apparently don't take sexual orientation into account. Would it be better if they did?</p>
<p>
[quote]
D doesn't know this yet and I'll let her make this discovery on her own, but I suspect she'll be uncomfortable.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Just to provide some reassurance for your D - my best friend in high school was a lesbian, and we used to sleep over at each other's houses, and it was never a problem. It can work just fine. :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
My point being, colleges don't assign men and women as roommates, yet apparently don't take sexual orientation into account. Would it be better if they did?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The problem with this idea is that many college kids are either just figuring out their sexual orientation, or they're in the closet. And what do you do about bisexual kids with such a system?</p>
<p>Celloguy, just curious... what info do you have about your d's future roommate that she doesn't have? I'm wondering what you are basing your opinion on(?)</p>
<p>FWIW, my very straight daughter has many close gay & lesbian friends and there are no problems or issues. I'd think that a lesbian woman would have more to complain about with a straight roommate than the other way around - after all, the lesbian won't be the one entertaining guys in the shared room late at night. So Celloguy, one advantage of the lesbian roommate is you know your daughter won't stumble out of bed one morning to find a strange man in her roommate's bed.</p>
<p>Asking for sexual orientation in assigning roomates seems over-intrusive and unnecessary. Usually, it works out fine; there are a zillion factors other than sexual orientation that make roommates compatible or not. However, I am certain college housing offices are very familiar with gay-straight roommate situations where one or the other feels uncomfortable, and that these get resolved pretty quickly without much pushback.</p>
<p>calmom, my D avoids computers/college webpages and directories/chat rooms/LJ/CC and so forth; it's all part of my job and my interests so I tune in -- therefore I know more about her school than she does at this point. This feels a little weird to me too, but so be it.</p>
<p>Re your point about straight/lesbian friends -- that's not quite the same as being bureaucratically assigned to share a dorm room. You pick your friends. Most colleges try to assign compatible roomies -- they ask about music preferences, neatness, quiet hours and such, but in the end you're stuck with each other except in those rare cases where first-years can get a single. In D's case, she's just as shy around women as around men, so none of this is likely to matter.</p>
<p>jhs, you said "Asking for sexual orientation in assigning roomates seems over-intrusive and unnecessary" and on one hand I agree, but at the same time, students are asked their gender. So my original point was, since colleges take it upon themselves to assign rooms by gender, how is that less intrusive/more germaine than considering orientation?</p>
<p>Safety is a big issue for both me and my parents. I live in a pretty small (6-7,000), very safe town and I'm looking to stay in a similar situation so when I visited UVa the surrounding area was a huge turnoff and when I talked to a student he said there was a serial rapist walking around who hadn't been caught so that just added to my dislike of the area. My father thinks UVa is perfect for my brother though so obviously the safety issue is not as big of a concern.
This is probably more just because of my personality and not because I'm a girl, but my parents definitely want a somewhat nurturing type of college, not an impersonal school where I'll just be another number. Although if I was a boy and had the same personality, again I don't think this would be as big of an issue.</p>
<p>My parents seemed ridiculously chilled out in the college process, to the point that my father sat back and told me that I have good judgment and he'll support any decision I make. </p>
<p>Safety was a discussion that my family never sat down and had, actually. I grew up in NYC -- they trusted my street smarts and common sense and knew that I understood that bad things can happen anywhere, so I should always be cognizant of my surroundings. Then again, all the schools I looked at are considered safe-- most had enclosed campuses, most (if not all) boasted about having those blue light phones and a campus police force as opposed to "rent a cop" security guards (we have both).</p>
<p>They wanted me to be at a top school, with a lively on campus scene-- friendly students, interesting courses, fun activities... and the ability to go off campus and do something fun too. They wanted a solid reputation, good job placement, etc. But that's also what I wanted, so whatever.</p>
<p>Honestly, the most vocal my parents got were when my mom didn't like a core curriculum since she felt it was too restrictive (my dad liked it, on the other hand), and my dad really felt strongly against me attending a school with a "cutthroat" academic culture-- where kids would steal books from the library or sabotage projects or things of that nature... they liked the idea of me going to a more "supportive" school where students work together and stuff. They also didn't like some of the top schools on the list because they felt that they were too narrowly focused on academics and that the campuses felt cloistered and cold since all the students did was study-- parents felt a college experience is more than just that. </p>
<p>Ultimately wound up at Duke, and parents honestly couldn't be happier-- only if Duke was closer to home.</p>
<p>Celloguy: I don't think there's much substance beyond tradition in not assigning men and women to the same room involuntarily. "Tradition" is still pretty strong though, and lots of people (and their parents) have modesty concerns vis a vis the other gender. I don't think the practice is actually about sexuality at all. To the extent there is any other substance to the practice, I think it can be summarized as "I wouldn't hand a drunken straight boy a key to my daughter's bedroom." I think you would have a hard time finding any evidence to support concern about women raping male peers, gay women not taking no for an answer, or rape between male peers (other than in traditional settings like prison, the Royal Navy, and certain exclusive boarding schools). </p>
<p>But really, it's mainly just tradition. Men and women have always been separated in roommate assignments. Gays and straights have always NOT been separated in roommate assignments. Probably that's because of a (traditional) reluctance to acknowledge that there ARE gays, or because kids arriving at college out of the closet is a phenomenon that can't be more than 10-15 years old, and is still far from universal. (Growing up, I knew substantial numbers of people who eventually decided they were gay, but only one of them was publicly gay in high school.) Tradition doesn't need a reason, though: It just is.</p>
<p>As for intrusiveness: For better or worse, for most people their gender is something they voluntarily put on display to the world in hundreds of ways. It is public information to anyone who has any significant degree of contact with you. But sexual orientation is not like that at all. It need not be displayed all the time, it is easy to fake, it is sometimes easy to be mistaken about, even to yourself. It is not even necessarily a black/white, yes/no polar thing. And declaring yourself gay at 18 still has negative social consequences in many settings. So, generally, it's considered private information.</p>
<p>Finally, I think housing offices would generally think it's a mistake to take any minority group and place them only with each other. Not only does that limit the interactions between different types of students, but it exposes the minority to a risk that there will be an insufficient population to permit further matches based on characteristics that are much more related to successful cohabitation: sleep schedules, messiness, smoking, and party style. And if you ARE in fact worried about sexuality, where do you put gay kids? I would think gay boy A is substantially more likely to have romantic complications with gay boy B than with straight boy C.</p>
<p>JHJ -- great post. All true. When I was in resi life, during the stone age, we put "men" on one wing, "women" on another, and never concerned ourselves with details (didn't have ramps or elevators either, but nobody mentioned it). I see now some colleges have "rainbow" floors and other attempts at accommodating diversity. For a while I followed Wellesley's struggle with transgender students (admitted as female, arrived on campus as male). Just now I went surfing for updates and came across a short, amusing piece by John Bloom ("Dear Mom and Dad, As My Gay Transvestite Roommate Was Saying the Other Day"); Bloom concludes by suggesting U.S. colleges might emulate Oxbridge: " "Here's your apartment. We don't want to know who comes in and goes out of it. Just show up for class." Then fifty years later you read about the freaky stuff in a cabinet minister's memoirs. By then the statute of limitations has run out. Believe me, it's easier on everybody.</p>
<p>My point being, colleges don't assign men and women as roommates, yet apparently don't take sexual orientation into account. Would it be better if they did?</p>
<p>no they don't assign men and women as roommates- but I beleive after freshman year, you can pick your own roommate.</p>
<p>I don't think assigning roommates of the opposite sex freshman year, would be appropriate, students already have a tremendous amount of things to get used to, and since most high schools, segregate by sex for overnights and the like, that would be something that wouldn't really have a great reason behind it.</p>
<p>After freshman year, you can request roommates, and while I am not sure about all of the dorms, my D had a male roommate when she lived in the college apts.</p>
<p>Some of the questions that I think are reasonalble
stay up late- get up early
smoking-non smoking
noisy- prefer quiet
messy- not as</p>
<p>What someones sexual orientation is- what race they are- what their economic background is- religion-I dont think should be asked- I think it should be assumed that you are going to college to learn, and part of learning is getting along with others.</p>
<p>I think for someone who is allergic to smoke, shouldn't be given a roommate who smokes 2 packs a day, but even Texans & Californians can learn to live together- after all they both come from pretty big states! ;)</p>
<p>If you are a good roommate, difference of sexual orientation, race, religon, politcal views doesn't have to be a problem. If conflicts come up, that is what the Ra & HAs are for. If it is really something that you can't live with, you often can get some sort of room change. I had heard of room changes, but mainly it was for positve reasons, someone wanted to be on same floor as boyfriend , or wanted to move to one of the theme dorms after they got involved in some of their events.</p>
<p>D had a single room for three years ( she didn't request it- but she does have ADD & it was an immense help to her, to be able to shut the door)</p>
<p>But the dorms were coed- as were the bathrooms. ( although that is up to students vote & there usually is a theme dorm that is designated "womens")
At first I was a little surprised, but really it was a non issue.
Respecting others boundarries, isn't tied to sexual orientation.
Her sister was 11 when she started freshman year, and I was comfortable enough with the level of respect and decorum of her dorm mates to allow her sister to stay overnight, at least a couple times every year.</p>
<p>Now her college as you know , is very small. A dorm of 26, even if full of 19 & 20 year olds, is going to have a different atmosphere than a dorm full of 200 19 & 20 year olds.</p>
<p>I doubt I would have had her sister stay with her, if she had been going to a much larger campus, say Indiana Bloomington. But Reed is in a little bubble- which served D pretty well.</p>