precocious

I visited Brandeis about a year ago (I'm from Mass), and what I saw okay... I had just come from seeing Wesleyan, Conn College, and Williams though - all of which had very beautiful, airy and spacious dorms - and I found Brandeis's dorms just a tad run-down looking and cramped. Probably because it was summer, but yeah... they're average in terms of dorming, I guess. Nothing special, nothing horrendous, but you should go take a look yourself!

AliP

Thank you for your comments. I actually was invited to apply Blue Ribbon and did not know much about Brandeis (except the academic aspects) when I applied. I do not live in the Boston area and have not been able to commit the funds for a visit. I have been accepted and am doing research on Brandeis as best as possible from afar. My mother is a UPenn employee with tuition benefit so I am waiting to hear from Penn before I commit elsewhere. Brandeis is my number one choice of the schools that have already offered me admission and the more I learn, the better I feel about Brandeis.

JayVee

My neice goes to Brandeis and lost out in the housing lottery for Junior year. She was waitlisted for a dorm and ended up renting an apartment. When we visited her, there was an article in the school paper about how the housing lottery will kill your friendships. My neice likes Brandeis though (she is not a partier), and now her younger brother goes there too. (School newspapers are usually on line and can be a good source of info.)

unbelievablem

good news for new brandeis students -- they are about to begin replacing an old set of dorms with new ones that will increase the number of rooms available on campus.

the bad news for current brandeis students -- while the replacement process is going on, there are fewer rooms available as the old dorm is lost before the new one is built. but freshman and sophmores are guarenteed housing so this will not affect students entering this fall . juniors and seniors, who aren't guaranteed housing, and grad students will be the ones most affected by this. but by the time new students become juniors, the new dorms are supposed to be open, which should make things better in the future.

in the past residential life always said that anyone who stayed on the waiting list ended up with housing - this is now the first year affected by the reduction in rooms so it waits to be seen how this all falls out. but again, for new students, things should get better.

SilverClover

Thank God for going abroad junior year.... Senior year I'll be screwed.

Really, a huge draw to Brandeis aside from all of it's other amazingness was being able to live in the Castle. I got the last female single in the Castle so it's fate, eh?

And it's totally true that the housing lottery can ruin friendships. My group of 4 people planned 3 months before housing what we were going to do to stay together. The week before housing selections, they decided that the guy would get a single and the two girls would get a double and I was left to fend for myself. Had I not gotten a single in the Castle, there may have been some issues there. Luckily it all worked out.

Spike McAwesome

Before the housing lottery, we had a system where, essentially, residence life just picked names and put them in dorms. Sure, we could indicate preferences, but nothing was guaranteed. There was a quote in the Justice from the housing director at Tufts at the time, who said "If I had to run the housing system at Brandeis, I'd probably kill myself." I wish I had saved that issue of the Justice.

Remember to take all tours of dorm rooms with a grain of salt. They'll never show a "Lofted Triple" (or whatever they're called now), they'll never show an older dorm, they'll never show a messy dorm... it's always made up, perfect, spacious, and clean. This applies everywhere, not just Brandeis. So remember - just because you saw a nice, clean dorm at another school, it doesn't mean you'll get it.

The new Brandeis dorms should be nice, though it's a shame to lose Ridgewood. I lived there my sophomore and senior years. It was a terrible waste of space, but they felt so cozy and "home-y".

soze

I lived in Ridgewood as a freshman way back in the early 80s, and I'm sorry to see it go as well.

When I was a student, the housing lottery was actually very well organized and pretty fair. Basically freshman got assigned housing and the rest was handed out on a seniority basis, with the "lottery" only being used to choose among students of equal seniority.

This usually meant that sophomores got the worst housing and seniors got the best.

rebelliousduck

Actually we did see a lofted triple on our housing tour last year. But in general, you're right about how most schools present their housing options. Doubt that any of them mention "provisional" housing.

starcatch

let me tell you -- the fact that they give priority in terms of housing based on when they get your matriculation deposit is NO joke! i might just be bitter (i have since transferred from brandeis), but as a freshman i was put in a lofted triple in the most run-down freshman dorm... and i mailed my decision and deposit the very last possible day, one minute before the post office closed. i still think it's a way to punish people who are on the fence about going to brandeis. it might also be no coincidence that 6 people out of my freshman hall applied to transfer...