<p>Best dorm? There isn’t one. Harvey Mudd is unusual in that all of the dorms have something going for them. Moreover, many people have strong affiliations to one dorm in particular, and sometimes live there all four years.</p>
<p>Around late June or July, you will get information on how to fill out a couple of online surveys. One is your housing survey. It has about 40 questions, many open ended, and is used to determine your roommate and your dorm. You get your rooming assignment. I strongly encourage you to be honest as possible on the form, but beyond that, I would let the matching people do their jobs. The people who select your room are students, and they know what each dorm is like. Most matches are very good.</p>
<p>My roommate and I sort of cheated the system, and requested a particular person and a dorm. The result wasn’t terrible, but from talking to the person who did the assignments, we were almost put in a different dorm. In retrospect, I sort of wish we had been. Our placement this year has been great, but next year, we are very happy to be moving to the dorm that we would have been placed in had we not tried to pick a dorm out ourselves.</p>
<p>That’s my cautionary tale. The important thing to keep in mind is that all the dorms are nice enough physically, and you will most likely be put in the dorm that you fit in with the best automatically. So don’t worry!</p>