curious8582008

In the dorm book, it says "no smoking in common areas, smoking permitted in individual rooms pending agreement by suite members". I'm planning to vehemently disagree (assuming that I get into MacGregor), but smoke can travel through air vents. How many MacGregorites smoke?

molliebatmit

In my experience, zero -- I don't know anybody who smoked in his or her room.

Most suites would probably not be too keen to agree to allow someone to smoke in his or her room since the smell does travel.

jimmythegent

Ehh, definitely depends. When I lived in MacGregor, one of my neighbors would smoke in his room. A lot. The entire suite smelled.

Unfortunately, he wasn't very friendly and we asked several times for him to stop or place something under his doorway.

How to prevent this? Live somewhere where there is an active GRT or active entry members. When you're doing in-house rush for macgregor, ask lots of questions.

Questions I would've liked to have asked when I did in-house rush:
"Where are the doubles?" I ended up in one of the few doubles in all of MacGregor. Which turned out good, but could have been bad.
"How is the social life in this entry?" Everyone will probably say good, but then again, you may get someone who is truly looking out for your best interests.

That's my advice, :-). But don't worry 99% of the suites are great.

la montagne

Is this to say that the social life is NOT good? (Sorry, I can be slow. =P)

PiperXP

I think the point was that every entry will boast their hall, but some may be honest about their entry if they live in a less social one.

jessiehl

In my experience (not in MacG, since I didn't spend much time there, but in general), people are surprisingly likely to be honest with you about their living group culture. They don't actually want to end up loaded with miserable freshmen who hate them (which is what can happen if you pretend to be something you're not to the frosh).

However, when it comes to a question about social life, people *will* tend to say that it's good no matter what it's like, because if they are happy living group members, than it probably meets their definition of good, which is not necessarily the same as yours. So ask for specifics. "What do you like to do for fun?" "Do most residents here know most other residents?" "Does this entry ever go out to dinner as a group?" "Where would you say this hall falls on the loud/quiet spectrum, compared to the rest of the dorm?" "What student groups are popular here?" "What is the attitude toward LGBT folks like?" And so on.

PiperXP

Ah Jessie, I wish I had your advice when I was doing rush.

molliebatmit

My goal during MacG in-house rush was to make sure no one ever had to ask how the social life was -- I always gave specific examples, because it was more useful for them and easier for me to talk about. And as Jessie says, we wanted freshmen who were giddy about the stuff we were giddy about. Way more fun that way.

ask-paul

For what it's worth, I'd like to point out that Jessie's list of questions is phenomenal and relevant for all living groups - dorms, fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups. Unfortunately, it's hard when you're a (pre-)freshman to realize what the good questions are.

PiperXP

PAUL! You're alive!