Any Ivies w decent dorms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a weird topic.

You don't go to college to live in luxury dorms. Having lived in genuinely crappy apartments in my 20s, none of the dorms I ever saw at Ivy schools (attended two for undergrad and grad) were terrible. They could be basic. But it's part of the fun and being in college.

Tell this to my 16 year old daughter, who would pick Christopher Newport over an Ivy, thanks to their decent looking dorms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a weird topic.

You don't go to college to live in luxury dorms. Having lived in genuinely crappy apartments in my 20s, none of the dorms I ever saw at Ivy schools (attended two for undergrad and grad) were terrible. They could be basic. But it's part of the fun and being in college.

Tell this to my 16 year old daughter, who would pick Christopher Newport over an Ivy, thanks to their decent looking dorms.

Tell her that is she picks the Ivy the rest of her life she’ll be in nicer houses than if she did CNU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a weird topic.

You don't go to college to live in luxury dorms. Having lived in genuinely crappy apartments in my 20s, none of the dorms I ever saw at Ivy schools (attended two for undergrad and grad) were terrible. They could be basic. But it's part of the fun and being in college.

Tell this to my 16 year old daughter, who would pick Christopher Newport over an Ivy, thanks to their decent looking dorms.

I doubt anyone would pick CNU over an ivy or any T50, but if she seriously prioritizes top dorm appearance (or food) then the ivies/T10s are not for her anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a weird topic.

You don't go to college to live in luxury dorms. Having lived in genuinely crappy apartments in my 20s, none of the dorms I ever saw at Ivy schools (attended two for undergrad and grad) were terrible. They could be basic. But it's part of the fun and being in college.

Tell this to my 16 year old daughter, who would pick Christopher Newport over an Ivy, thanks to their decent looking dorms.

I doubt anyone would pick CNU over an ivy or any T50, but if she seriously prioritizes top dorm appearance (or food) then the ivies/T10s are not for her anyway.

On that criteria, look at schools like Texas A&M that have resort style pools with lazy rivers at the dorms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The newer dorms at Cornell are nice.

Can confirm. Very nice! And the food is very good.

[Anonymous]

When my brother started at Penn,he was in a brand new dorm. By the end of that one year, it looked disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Brown has a few brand new dorms.

[Anonymous]

My freshman is living in a tiny basement room with a roommate, next to the laundry, farthest from the restrooms, with trains choo choo-ing till midnight a block away, flooded in the first month, and WITHOUT A/C. Nevertheless, they are happy there so I don’t have any complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard that Dartmouth is building new undergraduate housing, but yeah, they're mostly awful. Renovations sound great but on a compact campus they often mean that you'll spend multiple years in old nasty housing being woken up at 6:00 am by noisy construction in the dorms adjacent to yours...which will be open the year after you graduate.

My memories of Yale are totally defined by the shabby, dark and irregular quality of the housing. They've renovated a lot but it's still not great, especially because everyone pays the same amount but the luck of the housing lottery or willingness to submit fake doctor notes can make the difference between a stunning suite or a dumpy rathole.

Although residential colleges and dorm rooms were supposedly selected mostly randomly and only to balance things by geography, gender and interests, that was not the case. Inevitably the most well-off or connected students ended up in the most spacious, historically special or appealing 1st year suites. I understand that Harvard did things quite similarly. Not sure if others are more evolved.

Weird, I thought the rooms I lived in at Yale were pretty nice. Wood paneling, hardwood floors and a fireplace! And they have been renovated since my time, with two brand new residential colleges.

Also it was not my experience at all that the connected got nicer rooms. Housing is only random first year, after that it's a lottery based on random numbers, starting with seniority. I don't remember the better off getting higher numbers. Are you suggesting it was all rigged?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard that Dartmouth is building new undergraduate housing, but yeah, they're mostly awful. Renovations sound great but on a compact campus they often mean that you'll spend multiple years in old nasty housing being woken up at 6:00 am by noisy construction in the dorms adjacent to yours...which will be open the year after you graduate.

My memories of Yale are totally defined by the shabby, dark and irregular quality of the housing. They've renovated a lot but it's still not great, especially because everyone pays the same amount but the luck of the housing lottery or willingness to submit fake doctor notes can make the difference between a stunning suite or a dumpy rathole.

Although residential colleges and dorm rooms were supposedly selected mostly randomly and only to balance things by geography, gender and interests, that was not the case. Inevitably the most well-off or connected students ended up in the most spacious, historically special or appealing 1st year suites. I understand that Harvard did things quite similarly. Not sure if others are more evolved.

Weird, I thought the rooms I lived in at Yale were pretty nice. Wood paneling, hardwood floors and a fireplace! And they have been renovated since my time, with two brand new residential colleges.

I'm pretty sure every freshman suite had wood floor and most had a random (non-working) fireplace, but mine was definitely not nice. You lucked out! And my residential college was an absolute dump and one of the last to be renovated. It's nicer now, but still cramped and pokey compared to dorms at other schools.

I wasn't just talking about freshman year, I was talking about my rooms every year. Of course the fireplaces are non working, do you really think it would be smart to have working fireplaces?

Yale's rooms with their wood floors and so much nicer IMO than the ugly sterile tile and cinder blocks of dorms at other colleges. But to each their own!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My freshman is living in a tiny basement room with a roommate, next to the laundry, farthest from the restrooms, with trains choo choo-ing till midnight a block away, flooded in the first month, and WITHOUT A/C. Nevertheless, they are happy there so I don’t have any complaints.

Where is this? You sure you aren’t confusing your kid’s dorm with the movie My Cousin Vinny? Does the train come through every night at 4am?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Penn has two nice freshman dorms(Hill, Lauder) plus the older freshman quad dorms are halfway done with renovations and those will be nice soon. The upperclass dorms are a mix but not bad.

Ivies are old campuses. Dorms are never going to be the same glitz as the big southern schools. No one picks ivies for dorms. You pick it for the unparalleled education and outcomes and the state of the art research spaces.

Lauder is an upperclassmen dorm being used to house freshmen while the Quad is being renovated. It have a freshman this year. It is suites and they are lovely. However, I wish she had the normal freshmen experience of doubles along a long hall with doors open all of the time. I also don’t think college kids need to live in dorms that are nicer than their house at home.

Lauder seems to have an antisocial rep. Any basis for that?

Not sure. As I mentioned about my kid- I wish she had a more typical freshman dorm experience. The rooms are all suites, so maybe that’s what it seems antisocial….suites are definitely less social than typical college doubles.

Yale is all suites, they were very social.

Suites can be terrible if you end up in the wrong entryway or with a bad roommate combination. Some floors had 3-5 suites and a great mix of social people that made it the place to be. In other suites, you could be one of just 2 suites on your floor and if the mix was wrong, you'd rarely see a soul- that was my freshman year. I think a long hallway of rooms might be unpleasant in terms of living conditions but a very positive social environment!

My best living experience was when I was in a tiny, crowded entryway with the 4 smallest suites in my residential college. It was the housing lottery dumping ground and had basically the worst picks from each class. It was really great to mix across 3 classes and our cramped conditions somehow encouraged more mixing than if we'd had more square footage.

Suites are best if they don't include bathrooms. Harvard used to have most bathrooms within suites, while Yale had most bathrooms in hallways outside of suites. I think ensuite bathrooms are convenient but are not great for socializing because people have no reason to see anyone but their immediate roommate and can turn really antisocial.

I thought my freshman suite (two shared bedrooms and a common room) was a huge plus because I was rooming with 3 other girls, not just 1. It was especially good because my immediate roommate was... not my cup of tea. I got on much better with the other two girls. Far less roommate conflict because we had more room. And our whole floor and entryway was very social.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a weird topic.

You don't go to college to live in luxury dorms. Having lived in genuinely crappy apartments in my 20s, none of the dorms I ever saw at Ivy schools (attended two for undergrad and grad) were terrible. They could be basic. But it's part of the fun and being in college.

+1.
The only thing you want in a dorm is location. Nobody wanted the farflung ones that had you trudging from eastbuttfurk

For Brown, most are great location-wise, but most are also pretty spartan. Varying levels of responsiveness from building services. Mine was fine and got quick respinses, but others have not. Also, heat is turned on incrementally, so it can get a little chilly if your dorm doesn't get heat until mid-Oct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My memories of Yale are totally defined by the shabby, dark and irregular quality of the housing. They've renovated a lot but it's still not great, especially because everyone pays the same amount but the luck of the housing lottery or willingness to submit fake doctor notes can make the difference between a stunning suite or a dumpy rathole.

Although residential colleges and dorm rooms were supposedly selected mostly randomly and only to balance things by geography, gender and interests, that was not the case. Inevitably the most well-off or connected students ended up in the most spacious, historically special or appealing 1st year suites. I understand that Harvard did things quite similarly. Not sure if others are more evolved.

What kind of doctors note gets you a nicer dorm?

My friends who got "medical singles" did not have actual medical problems but were savvy and had their primary care physicians cite anxiety, ADHD, sleep apnea, and insomnia (different friends, not all the same diagnoses for one person) starting sophomore year. I remember one person who had celiac disease and tried to get one but they were denied. There were always 2-3 single rooms reserved for this purpose, and I think some people took what we then called "annex" housing in nearby apartment buildings if there weren't sufficient medical singles but their request was accepted.

The only person I knew with a legit medical single had what was then referred to as HFA and that was from day 1 freshman year, and was definitely legit. He would have been non-functioning in a shared space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My freshman is living in a tiny basement room with a roommate, next to the laundry, farthest from the restrooms, with trains choo choo-ing till midnight a block away, flooded in the first month, and WITHOUT A/C. Nevertheless, they are happy there so I don’t have any complaints.

Where?