I stood on Sorority Row during Bama Bound with my mouth agape, photographing the homes, each more stupendous than the last. I have no idea how much students are paying, but I’ve seen estimates for Panhellenic Sororities in the $6,000-$7,000 range per SEMESTER. Mind you, that includes meals and dues, and those who live there are charged more than those who don’t.
Sure doesn’t fit my budget, but neither does the flat rate for room and board at a lot of the elite private schools in my area. (Swarthmore and Haverford each charge around $14k for R&B.)
There’s a huge range of housing options, so it ranges. The price UA lists for room and board (which is based on suite living) is $9,000 and some change. You can do it for considerably less if you stay in an old, traditional dorm double, like the ones featured in those Ole Miss photos (which many of the young women who rush do), or obviously a lot more, if you go the high-end Greek route or move off campus to a posh furnished apartment.
Based on the “quick facts” page on the UA site, room and board for 2016-17 is $12,050.
On the UA Panhel site, the “average” cost for living in-house is $11,914 ($5,957 per semester) and the “high” cost for living in-house is $14,646 ($7,323 per semester).
So, not as big a premium as one would think. (I was all prepared to be outraged. And I wasn’t.)
Joining a sorority is a BIG deal down here. There are sororities up north but it’s very, very different down south. “Rush” can begin before school starts and some girls begin to prep for it their senior year of high school. More people rush than there are spots. It’s selective, especially for the more popular sororities. The girls must obtain letters of recommendations from past members, present resumes and jump thru a variety of social hoops during rush week- Being a legacy matters- a lot. Each night the girls endure cuts and it can be brutal. I’ve heard about weekly seminars and paying private counselors to help girls get in- not unlike college counselors. ( insert eye rolls here)
Ole Miss, Bama, Georgia, Kentucky, Chapel Hill… membership is life long.
People still ask what sorority I was in- my college didn’t have them up north. My very southern mother still goes to organized monthly sorority lunches and willingly pays dues. Each sorority has a national board that oversees all active chapters. Socially it’s not unlike the Eating Clubs at Princeton, or the Final Clubs at Harvard- maybe not as elite but locally, the perceived connections are as important.
btw, sorority houses are always very nice because the girls are not allowed to throw parties in them. ( unlike the fraternity houses which are the grossest places on earth!) Sorority parties are held off site. There are also sororities that are actually registered fraternities- the bonus being they can have parties.
The things you learn living in the south…
I find the decorating style of most of the featured rooms claustrophobic. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate all that frou frou fabric and tufted/fluffed stuff. But if that’s what the girls like, have at it.
My room freshman year had purple Indian bedspreads, purple sheer curtails, a flakati carpet, and a hanging black wrought iron candelabra (which, come to think of it, is sitting in my garage for some reason). Whoo-hoo!
Re: #188 - You said it, @jym626! My older son bought his own comforter set at a Project Graduation silent auction and the fact that he even remembered he needed one I pressed me.
Took a look and while not to my taste, it’s their dorm.
Feels a bit too high maintenance and too fancy and too bright colorwise.
Then again, part of that is I’m a guy who preferred my rooms to be on the more spartan side not only for ease of maintenance, but also as a way to not get too comfortable in my dorm room and to pay a bit of homage of sorts to my father and older relatives who had to endure far worse living conditions not only in the college dorms of their place era*.
Decoration in my dormroom was limited to textbooks and library books/articles on the shelves and piled on the floor.
Samples of other dorm decoration choices in their dormrooms:
A younger friend whose room was so inundated with computer parts(Hard drives, cases, power supplies, etc) that it covered the floor up to my knees(smidgen under 6'), WWF and Anime posters, and plates encrusted with food detrius from 3-4 days previous.
Another friend whose room was filled with sports/athletic posters/knickknacks and a few mounted "stuffed" rats set on the windowsill after being caught in the dorm and killed by him and his roommates.
An older female acquaintance who felt embarrassed for having to take me to her dormroom at Wellesley to get something for me because she felt it was a mess. It was only slightly cluttered which is par for the course for most undergrads I've seen during exam periods. While I didn't say so, I felt she was being overly conscious. Overall decor leans closer to the pictures in OP article with more subdued colors.
Mom and aunts would have been ecstatic if my dormroom/first post college apartment was even a tenth as well decorated as her room. Too fancy/high maintenance for my taste, though.
An older HS alum turned math teacher I had who showed us students a picture of his senior year dormroom.....wall to wall armed Gundam Mech figures with three guarding the front door.
A female friend whose decor could best be described as tye-dye hippie with some dark gothic elements mixed in.
Several friends whose dorm rooms were filled with posters of popular punk rock icons such as the Ramones, Clash, Sex Pistols, etc.
50's era Taiwan where the typical dormroom was the size of a small American double and yet, was expected to accommodate 6-8 undergrads in 2 rows of bunk beds on each side of the small room with one table and a set of small lockers for all their possessions.
Some of this was still in existence in Mainland China when I studied abroad and visited the Chinese student dorms in the late '90s…though I wouldn’t be surprised if that all got ditched once the wealth and higher expectations from the new emerging upper/upper-middle class came to the fore.
@Pizzagirl, that $9,000+ number I cited for the cost of R&B at Alabama was from CollegeData.com. UA itself estimates $13,050 ($8,850 for room; $4,200 for board), which reflects the charge for a private bedroom in a 4-BR apartment and the full freshman meal plan. The College Data number is likely more reflective of the real average (although I have no idea how they come up with their numbers). Certainly you can live in a regular dorm for a LOT less than $8,000 and the vast majority of students move off campus sophomore year, where there’s a huge range of housing available and many save money from the freshman cost of living.
Also, I don’t know about Ole Miss (the origin of the OP), but that type of room at Bama would be found in Julia Tutweiler Hall, which is an old, very-past-its-prime traditional women’s dorm. While it remains hugely popular with the rush crowd due to its history and location, I think some of the OTT decorating may be an attempt to make a kind of nasty place more livable. Cement block walls, old linoleum floors, hall bathrooms with gang showers, and the distinct smell of mold sometimes call for a big fluffy rug and a lot of fabric to cover up the reality. Given how much money they’re saving by choosing Tut over the suite-style options, I don’t find the decorating particularly frivolous.
Me and the wife went to TJMAXX, Marshalls and Home Goods today. She was shopping and I thought about this thread. I remembered the picture of the girls dorm and I mentally shopped for the items required to get the same effect. I believe I could recreate that look for around $400 per person.
There is nothing wrong with students making their rooms feel homey. It’s the same reason we send them care packages - to bring them comfort. I just started a College Crate subscription for DD and I don’t think it’s anymore unreasonable than matching room decor! https://thecollegecrate.com
Judging by the crowds at Target and Linens & Things yesterday this back to college buying is at all-time high levels. Even the local prep residential school bussed over their students to shop. What a boon to local economy.
Keep in mind what is considered homey is very YMMV.
For some, it’s having fancy brightly colored furnishings.
For others, it could be a room decorated with scattered computer parts on the floor to one’s knees or stuffed captured rats on one’s dorm windowsill as was the case with a couple of dormrooms I’ve visited.
My d started school at a mid-west university. I made an upholstered headboard/ backboard for her like the one in the first pic. (From start to finish it took less than two hours. Bought the wood at Lowes and they cut it for me; found the Waverly charcoal grey twill fabric at Walmart.) We did a simplified version of the simplest of these (the first pic). Basically, we just color-coordinated with room-mate’s wall hanging, without the whole custom bedding/ custom drapery thing. They had to loft their beds because they have a larger entry but smaller room. Room-mate chose boho wall hanging with purple, teal, cream and black with black comforter reversing to grey. We chose to go with medium grey, dark charcoal grey (headboard), cream, and white and accented with teal pillow. so as not to clash with Roomie’s choices.
I chose a super soft cream carpet and semi-transparent cafe length curtains for the large north-facing window. Found a small grey futon to put in front of window with a black throw pillow and teal throw. The furniture in the room only gave the girls three drawers each and two cubby shelves that were of limited use. So, I re-purposed an old black lateral file cabinet sitting in the basement. My daughter and I painted it charcoal grey and the drawers a pretty cream. It fit under her bed with room to spare, and holds all her clothes with extra room to spare. Her roomie then took the 4 drawer dresser they would have had to share and put it under her bed. Their desks are under the bed perpendicular to the cabinet/ chest of drawers (leaving about 2 feet of space so its not too crowded).
Roomie put one of the modular cubbies on top of her chest of drawers. One wood cubby made a perfect coffee table in front of futon, and the other modular units are shared as a two drawer/ one cubby short food dresser/ pantry next to their stacked fridge and microwave in the 6’x7’ entryway.
Very simple style overall, but turned out to be great-looking and very functional as far as storage is concerned. Since girls do tend to have more clothes, I felt this was a great solution for that need. Hopefully, they will be able to easily keep their room tidy with this design.
Although the custom bedding and drapes are very pretty in these Old Miss pics, I would be more interested in how the designers are solving storage issues in a small space. It would be nice if they showed what they are using for storage.
