I really was looking forward to freshman experience and applied for it with a well-thought out essay. I had other options, such as stouffer and harnwell, for my 2-5 choices and listed gregory as my last choice.
I got gregory
Can someone please tell me how the living conditions/room size/facilities are at Gregory? I've heard it is very isolated and tough to interact with other freshman as a student living in gregory.
please tell me reasons (if there are any) why gregory is better than the other houses! (PS I didn't apply to the quad because I was looking for decent room sizes, sanitary conditions (good ratio for bathrooms), etc.)
Well, if it makes you feel any better I know a person who went to Penn and stayed there as a freshman and said it was the WORST decision he's ever made.
umm..gregory was actually my third choice(I got my first choice yay!)--I know ppl have said it's anti-social but their world language program was really enticing....you get .5 credit just for attending all the meetings and u have meals together!
I've also heard that the rooms are bigger than Hill(puke) and have air conditioning!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to be a sophomore at Penn and I lived in Gregory during my freshmen year. In terms of the dorm itself, Gregory offers very spacious rooms. There is ample closet space and having a private bathroom is also a perk! Although it is not as nice as the high rises, I would say the living conditions at Gregory are fairly good, especially for college dorm living
As much as I hate stereotyping, I have to admit that from my experience, Gregory can be considered somewhat "antisocial". We had 2 floor of freshmen (3rd and 4th). The 4th floor was fairly social but the 3rd floor (my floor) was not. I hardly knew my hall mates and whereas in say the quad or hill, most people seemed to be best friends with their hall mates. I think a lot of that has to do with our RA, who did absolutely nothing so hopefully you will end up with a better RA. However, even if you don't, it is completely possible to make outside friends-from sports, clubs, classes, etc. For example, I ended up making most of my friends from the Vagelos program I'm in.
On the plus side, Gregory is fairly quiet so it's good for studying, if you don't want to walk all the way to the library. Also, I would highly recommend making friends with the Harrison freshex people b/c they are literally one house over AND they get tons of free food so maybe you can share the perks
Hey powerfuldog! I'm here to make your life better.
I will be a junior in the fall and a 3rd year (!!!) Gregorian. This means that I *chose* to stay in Gregory past my initial freshman year, not once, but twice.
A little bit about me: I am a humanities student, a member of a fraternity, the director of one of Penn's most prominent comedy groups, and an editor of one of the campus' most popular publications. I am constantly going to events and parties. I have more friends than I can count. Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm not antisocial.
And neither are the people in Gregory. I've found over the year that there are two kinds of people who live in Gregory: those who are legit hermits, who never come out of their rooms ever (and, unfortunately, who set the stereotype for the rest of us), and those who are social, friendly, fascinating, passionate, and, above all, intensely loyal to each other and to the house. The Gregory community is unlike any other dorm- it is tight knit, with students constantly throwing events, baking food, partying, going out of their way to be open and friendly to anyone and everyone. I've met a lot of people at Penn, but my closest by far are the ones I met on my freshman floor in Gregs. I am literally staying with my same freshmen room mates for a 3rd year. To hammer the point home, I know multiple people who moved to the high rises during their sophomore year, but are returning to Gregory because they missed the people. I can't give a greater example than that.
If you want more specific reasons why Gregory is not the absolute worst, feel free to pm me. See you in the fall!
Gregory was my second or third choice freshman year. This next year I'll be at Gregory for the fourth time. Last I checked, we had the highest retention rate out of any college house... Which means more people who have lived there choose to return there than at any other college house, period.
Gregory has "social" events almost every night of the week, usually with free food of some kind. There's at least two standardized events that we hold every week, but we try to come up with excuses to hold more whenever we can. We've also done house trips to go skiing, go to a massive haunted house, go to Six Flags, or go to IKEA.
Do you like movies? That's a big draw for people. There's a film culture program where you can get .5 credits a semester by JUST watching movies (you can take it twice, getting a full credit for a year). It's been a while since I did it, but I think the rule is you need to watch 10 movies during the semester in Gregory's Film Lounge (we have a film lounge!) and participate in short discussions about them afterwards. And there are movies shown every Monday-Thursday night all semester, so you'll have plenty of movies to choose from. I think you also have to go to three film culture "outings", in which you go out to see a movie on a weekend and they pay for half of your ticket. The horror! Finally, we have a massive DVD library in the house office that you can go and check out DVDs from whenever you like.
Unsurprisingly, you'll get whatever you want out of it. If you go to house events and take advantage of all the cool stuff Gregory has to offer (I didn't even get to a lot of it here), you'll be happy you ended up where you did. Or you can keep your head down and keep to yourself, or spend all of your time in one of the other college houses with other friends... Regardless, Gregory is not going to ruin your freshman experience.
