Best college dorms and best food?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true UVA dorms don't have air conditioning? DS refuses to apply or even visit if this is true. Is is also true that they don't have enough dorms, so it is a scramble to get off campus housing?

UVA is replacing its old 60s-era first year dorms with new ones - so far, I think four dorms have opened and three more will welcome first year students this fall, with a couple more to be built in the next two years. They are all air conditioned. There will still be some non-A/C dorms, and of course rooms on the Lawn have no A/C. All the students say that it's really only uncomfortable the first two weeks of school. Lack of A/C seems pretty bearable compared to some New England schools with 6-month winters...but maybe that's just me.

Wow - which schools have 6-month winters!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The food at Virginia Tech is amazing - they've been tops on the Princeton Review list for several years. You would not believe all of the options, locally-sourced meats and produce, etc. Dorms, not so much, but there are some very nice new suites if you can get into them (upper class or apply for one of the leadership programs). I have heard Christopher Newport has great dorms.

Is that why many grads are fatties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are definitely UVA dorms w/o AC. Touring with my high schoolers I was surprised to see so many (freshman) dorms were the exact same as when DH and I were in college. I just assumed dorms had been upgraded in 30 years. Regarding AC, the kids survive without it and I wouldn't put it on a list as a "mst have."

If you DC is stuck with allergies..then yes it is a "must have" unless they want to be miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true UVA dorms don't have air conditioning? DS refuses to apply or even visit if this is true. Is is also true that they don't have enough dorms, so it is a scramble to get off campus housing?

UVA is replacing its old 60s-era first year dorms with new ones - so far, I think four dorms have opened and three more will welcome first year students this fall, with a couple more to be built in the next two years. They are all air conditioned. There will still be some non-A/C dorms, and of course rooms on the Lawn have no A/C. All the students say that it's really only uncomfortable the first two weeks of school. Lack of A/C seems pretty bearable compared to some New England schools with 6-month winters...but maybe that's just me.

Wow - which schools have 6-month winters!?

any ONE of the NESAC schools....e.g., Williams; Middlebury (very bad from what we've heard); the Maine schools (e.g., Colby); Dartmouth...all very cold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The food at Virginia Tech is amazing - they've been tops on the Princeton Review list for several years. You would not believe all of the options, locally-sourced meats and produce, etc. Dorms, not so much, but there are some very nice new suites if you can get into them (upper class or apply for one of the leadership programs). I have heard Christopher Newport has great dorms.

Is that why many grads are fatties?

Pardon? That's quite rude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it true UVA dorms don't have air conditioning? DS refuses to apply or even visit if this is true. Is is also true that they don't have enough dorms, so it is a scramble to get off campus housing?

UVA is replacing its old 60s-era first year dorms with new ones - so far, I think four dorms have opened and three more will welcome first year students this fall, with a couple more to be built in the next two years. They are all air conditioned. There will still be some non-A/C dorms, and of course rooms on the Lawn have no A/C. All the students say that it's really only uncomfortable the first two weeks of school. Lack of A/C seems pretty bearable compared to some New England schools with 6-month winters...but maybe that's just me.

Wow - which schools have 6-month winters!?

any ONE of the NESAC schools....e.g., Williams; Middlebury (very bad from what we've heard); the Maine schools (e.g., Colby); Dartmouth...all very cold.

Yup, I went to Dartmouth and it's cold/potentially snowy from November-April. I loved that aspect of it though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia about 60% of freshmen (it may even be higher), including DC, get singles. Shoeboxes, but still singles.

That would be a negative for me.

a negative for me too. great for upper classmen, grad students, but not freshmen building new relationships.

First PP who mentioned the negative here. Immediate PP said it perfectly. Freshman year is often the first time when new adults learn to live with other people. They should not have singles. Shoeboxes are fine. It is Manhattan after all.

[Anonymous]

Scrips dorms are gorgeous

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia about 60% of freshmen (it may even be higher), including DC, get singles. Shoeboxes, but still singles.

That would be a negative for me.

a negative for me too. great for upper classmen, grad students, but not freshmen building new relationships.

First PP who mentioned the negative here. Immediate PP said it perfectly. Freshman year is often the first time when new adults learn to live with other people. They should not have singles. Shoeboxes are fine. It is Manhattan after all.

Meh. I spent my four years in college sitting up late nights in the hallway with everybody else on the floor, making friends that way. And avoiding my preppie, judgy nightmare of a roommate and the swarms of friends who also ended up in Mass colleges and would visit constantly. SIL's freshman roommate put labels on everything in the room. Why does it have to be a right of passage that you have to spend freshman year rooming with a nutcase?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia about 60% of freshmen (it may even be higher), including DC, get singles. Shoeboxes, but still singles.

That would be a negative for me.

a negative for me too. great for upper classmen, grad students, but not freshmen building new relationships.

First PP who mentioned the negative here. Immediate PP said it perfectly. Freshman year is often the first time when new adults learn to live with other people. They should not have singles. Shoeboxes are fine. It is Manhattan after all.

Meh. I spent my four years in college sitting up late nights in the hallway with everybody else on the floor, making friends that way. And avoiding my preppie, judgy nightmare of a roommate and the swarms of friends who also ended up in Mass colleges and would visit constantly. SIL's freshman roommate put labels on everything in the room. Why does it have to be a right of passage that you have to spend freshman year rooming with a nutcase?

I agree with you.

My freshman year roommate was sleeping with the basketball team. Yes, the whole team. So much for her posh dc private upbringing!
I requested, and received a single for the next 3 years.

[Anonymous]

I agree that shoe box singles are preferable over shoe box double wides. The dorms with singles I've seen all keep the doors open and there's lots of activities with floor mates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia about 60% of freshmen (it may even be higher), including DC, get singles. Shoeboxes, but still singles.

Singles are awesome!

Some people are just downright disgusting, uncivilized, and problematic to share living spaces with. It is so much joy to have your own room in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Carnegie Mellon - shitty dorms. poor fin aid and terrible dorms. they need to step their game up.

Aw, we loved our dorms and we were just in Morewood, but with some really unique and huge rooms (granted, they were triples).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone tried the food at more than one college?

Yes, many. We liked Kenyon's food. They also have a big emphasis on locally sourced food.

Well that's a good thing because the food in Gambier restaurants is shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When did teens get to be so delicate? They cannot survive without AC?

Climate change. Have you ever been in a UVA dorm or a W&M dorm in September or May. Brutal. It's not the 70's anymore.