Housing Question: What's Honors College housing like?

thisdude415 · 08-02-2008, 06:16 PM

What are the East Laville and Acadiana dorms like?
(Relatively) spacious? New? Clean? etc

SaveOnUndergrad · 08-03-2008, 03:03 PM

I'll be a Freshman this fall and I'm staying at East Laville.

East Laville's rooms are the nicest I've seen of any traditional on campus dorm rooms at any college. They are fairly spacious and have a sink in the room. The dorm was renovated recently, and you can tell.

I didn't like Acadian as much. The rooms were a bit smaller, didn't have a sink, and just seemed older.

thisdude415 · 08-03-2008, 05:48 PM

haha you're the same person who responded to my other thread. I just PM'ed you; I guess you answered my question about whether you're in Honor's College.

What sorts of small appliances are allowed?
Coffee pots? Dorm fridges? Microwaves? Is there a community kitchen available?

SaveOnUndergrad · 08-04-2008, 10:58 PM

I think you're allowed most of that stuff, but I'll get back to you in a couple of weeks when I know for sure.

thisdude415 · 08-04-2008, 11:00 PM

thanks. y'all (warning: get used to that word NOW) start the 25th, right?

SaveOnUndergrad · 08-04-2008, 11:23 PM

Yip, I'm moving in the 21st. Got a couple of weeks to kill before then, so get at me now before I'm too busy.

thisdude415 · 08-06-2008, 07:19 PM

Let me know how you like it once you get there. On the tour, they said microwaves and dorm fridges are OK, coffeepots are ok if they're auto-shutoff. The tour lady didn't know if students are allowed to bring their own wireless routers for wifi, and my mom and I were too lazy to walk back to the place to ask. Do you know?

SaveOnUndergrad · 08-06-2008, 08:39 PM

Don't know, sorry. I wasn't planning on bringing my own.

I read your visit review. Make sure you get a private tour of the engineering facilities next time.

thisdude415 · 08-06-2008, 09:54 PM

Dorm rooms don't have wifi; plug-in internet is annoying, so it was a logical question (at least to me). I have a feeling that even if it's not allowed, I'd set it up (hidden, both in scanning and physically) and feign ignorance if caught.

I'll definitely be visiting again with more specific questions in mind... this was largely impulsive and up in the air until the last minute (due to the f***ing tropical storm edouard). we went mainly for an overview of the campus and dorms... i didn't really have time to collect my thoughts for questions, nor colleges to mentally compare lsu to during the tour.

For some reason (remodeling, maybe?) we didn't see herget. I can't really separate my mental image of all the different dorms at this point. I need to bring a camera next time...
All the dorms (with the exception of Acadian's lobby, which was wonderful) were somewhat over-shaddowed by one of the new res. colleges we saw (Blake, perhaps? very nice, moderately spacious, but no character)
W. Laville is the dorm that will most likely be open for Honors in fall 2009 (as I'm sure you know) at which point E. Laville will close for the same remodeling. When questioned, the lady didn't know how much that remodeling would entail. I plan on emailing LSU eventually about this, as well as about whether a higher essay score would help with getting the Chancellor's Alum scholarship... one of their publications said something about a candidates weekend or something like that... in which case i'd assume the ACT is just the initial prescreen before actual decisions.

Now I'm trying to decide how much stress I want to go through in this whole application process... maybe I can work out w/ mom how much we'll spend on apps, and whatever I don't use of that I can keep haha.
When it comes to dollars and cents, I'm not sure that LSU can be beaten.

btw, highland coffee right off campus is amazing. chimes is supposedly pretty good too for local food, and raising cane's is the obligatory south louisiana fast food, but i'm sure you saw both of those things in the visit summary. we've got cane's all over the state... so delicious haha.

SaveOnUndergrad · 08-06-2008, 10:20 PM

Ya Chimes was great. I was there when LSU baseball made a huge comback, so the place was going absolutely crazy.

When you compare the Laville dorm size to what we saw at UIUC, it was much bigger. I remembered it as pretty nice, but when my mom saw it in June without me during orientation, she said she couldn't believe how big it was. It will vary from place to place, but I don't think you will get something much nicer without paying a ton.

As for the Chancellor's Alumni Scholarship day in late February, I got it without going to that. Actually what happened was I got the invitation to that 2 days after I scheduled my visit in January. My mom called to see if I had to go to that. They said it was just informational and that's when they scheduled all that stuff for me. I was planning on just going on the basic tour, but they really went all out setting things up for me. Anyway, it's not really much of a screening day, it's mostly based on your academic record.

Apparently I was on the waitlist for the CA and when someone turned it down, I was next in line. My unweighted GPA was a bit lower than yours, but I did have an 11 on the writing section. I'm not really sure how much they weigh that into it. I like your chances though, especially if you show interest.

You can also probably get a departmental scholarship too.

thisdude415 · 08-07-2008, 01:43 AM

yeah. i think i'm gonna retake the act... i've got nothing to lose but a saturday morning i'd sleep away anyway. I know i can improve reading, and english and science should be easy to relatively maintain. i'd probably match gains in reading and essay with loss in math, though.

i guess it's still worth a shot... i'd kick myself if i didn't retake it and don't get the scholarship.

i think my motto for the year will be, "but if i don't do X, i'll always ask myself what if i had tried"
that line works great on parents, though it's far more haunting to me than them

and i'm serious about cane's... it's delicious (albeit expensive) chicken fingers. also try popeye's (also fried chicken, which you guys may or may not have in IL... it was started in new orleans like 30 yrs ago)
another great chain is CC's coffee