<p>I'm just curious, what is your favorite dorm/living group (if you're like me and already researched them) and why?</p>
<p>Well, I visited MIT at the end of September, and had a chance to check out all the dorms (BTW I stayed in Next)
Senior Haus: it was really creepy, go there only if your are in business or PolSci
EC: Tetazoo was pretty fun, they made me wash their cookie pan! 5th East was pretty cool also, with their stripper pole/evil overlord/massive noisemaking concrete block. Great group of people.
Bexley: Lol, like two couples were feeling each other up when I was there, but I had some epic conversations. Don’t go if you don’t want your dorm to look like the wall of an overpass.
Baker/McGregor/BC: Only went in there once, didn’t seem very special.
Random: Awesomesause! Go if you are a nerdy anime lover.
Simmons: Very empty and boring.
New: All the culture houses I visited were very friendly.
Next: I stayed here, and although most of the stereotypes are true, people are very nice and welcoming. I didn’t mind the 20 minute walk to campus.</p>
<p>If I get in, my choices will be:
1st: Bexley, due to it’s awesome rooms, closeness to campus, and insane people.
2nd: 5th East EC, I’d never be bored, plus closeness to campus
3rd: Random, I love the people there.
4th: Next? Next is nice!</p>
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Sloanies at SH? That’s… definitely not the stereotype. AFAIK, most Sloanies are West Campus and/or FSILG.</p>
<p>Wow, let’s watch the prefrosh stereotype our dorms…</p>
<p>I think I’d rather stereotype all the alum houses :P</p>
<p>For the record, the Ultrabuster is not concrete (I think it’s iron, but it is definitely made of metal).</p>
<p>Mollie - he probably went to the ‘political debate’ - PM me if you can’t guess which crufty alum gave the talk :)</p>
<p>Trying to mix Senior Haus and course 15 makes me chuckle a little inside.</p>
<p>P.S. I thought the Ultrabuster was composed of steel?</p>
<p>Eh, they kept pressuring me about deregulating government, and the 2 I met said they were course 15. I dunno, the whole thing felt really secretive and dirty.</p>
<p>And yeah, I couldn’t remember the name of that big heavy thing. Don’t they have a cylinder-shaped one, and a hex-nut shaped one?</p>
<p>As far as I know it’s only the Ultrabuster… there was a miniaturized version of it last year that I saw a few times.</p>
<p>You might be thinking of Tetazoo’s concrete octagon, instead.</p>
<p>There are various obnoxious things in EC… The Octagon definitely belongs to Tetazoo, and I think that the Minibuster does as well…</p>
<p>If there are substantial differences between the dorms, once you introduce the Fraternity, Sorority and Independent Living Groups into the mix (though not Freshman year), the housing options become huge.</p>
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<p>I…think you either met a strange sample, or they were messing with you. If you liked 5th East (which is where I lived), you would probably like most of Senior Haus.</p>
<p>Also, why on earth are you picking your top choices <em>now</em>? You’ve had, at most, one visit! You haven’t even been to Campus Preview Weekend yet, and certainly haven’t been through dorm rush. You’re putting the cart waaaaay before the horse. :)</p>
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<p>Oh dear god, I had not heard of this event, but the possibilities that are now going through my head…</p>
<p>Don’t forget NW35/Phoenix Group 
However, I don’t know exactly how many spots we’ll have open next year for the incoming class…</p>
<p>Two words in favor of Senior House: Steer Roast.
If you’ve never heard of it, try googling.
(Of course, if you happen to be my DS (who is currently in this year’s EA pool) you should ignore this post. Your mom was never there. Ignore all of the photos. The descriptions of debauchery are exaggerated. Don’t ask. I spent every night in the library, studying. Really.)</p>
<p>I will probably go with:</p>
<ol>
<li>Baker</li>
<li>Bexley </li>
<li>Simmons</li>
<li>Senior</li>
</ol>
<p>Heh. Steer Roast was the event most directly responsible for MIT making Playboy’s list of the top ten party schools in the US in the early 80’s. When you look at the list of famous bands who have been booked to play Steer Roast, it is quite amazing and the party is always something of a bacchanal. </p>
<p>And that is part of what makes MIT the way it is. There are a great many dorms that do not want to throw an event like Steer Roast, and they do not have to. There are others (such as Senior House) who very much do, and they are welcome to it. There is such a diversity of housing, that folks are able to find a living group where they feel at home.</p>
<p>I figured I might as well post mine now:</p>
<ol>
<li>EAsT camPUS</li>
<li>Bexley</li>
<li>New?</li>
</ol>
<p>So guys, there is this thing at the beginning of Orientation called “Residence EXporation” or REX, and basically it means that upperclassmen spend the entire summer planning awesome events for you guys to go to and free food for you to eat and such all in the hope that you are cool and want to live in our dorm. It would be really, really nice if you could at least PRETEND that you haven’t made up your minds yet.</p>
<p>Or, maybe we can make some sort of a compromise…do you think you could actually get admitted and come to CPW before picking a dorm to live in? CPW is kind of like mini-REX, we only spend ~a month and a half planning it…</p>
<p>@4r3n2: I’m just talking about the dorm(s) that seem to have caught our interests. It’s never a bad thing, in my opinion, to do a little research. Besides, it’s not like I have my heart set on one dorm. Heck, odds are, I probably won’t even get in to MIT in the first place. And if I do, I’m sure that we all will take advantage of REX and CPW and keep our minds open. I know that I will.</p>
<p>k4r3n2, why can’t you let us pitiful prefrosh dream?</p>
<p>Hey, I resent that. Why can’t you let me have my illusion that you’re all blank slates and I can convince all you that EC is totally awesome if I plan enough events? :)</p>
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<p>Yeah, I’m going to agree with this.</p>
<p>Folks, in order for students to be allowed to continue to HAVE this system with all these cool dorms with different cultures that you’re allowed to choose between, where you’re not forced to choose blind and get to go through dorm rush (which is, let me tell you, a lot of fun), incoming classes of students have to keep taking advantage of it. If people stop using the system properly, and everyone just picks a dorm eight or nine months before the start of their freshman year and sticks with it, there’s a risk that the relevant administrators will take it, or at least large parts of it, away.</p>
<p>It’s great that you care about where you will end up living if you get in. 
But you really shouldn’t be making up your minds about how you will rank the dorms just yet. Most of you are picking blind! The whole point of the system is that you DON’T have to pick blind!</p>
<p>I realize that I’m sounding overly serious in this post. But I would like to have this on record, so that you at least understand why, in future months, on this board, on other Internet fora, at CPW, and during dorm rush, you will have legions of of students harping incessantly on the need for you to go through the housing selection process properly. :p</p>