https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-246505fe7c9a1ebecb1cb2045ca3aefe-c?convert_to_webp=true
Dorm room at Havahd, which - last time I checked - had no shortage of wealthy students and no trouble finding applicants.
Why feel like you have to slum it? Nothing necessarily privileged with having a nicely-furnished bedroom. That’s what they’ll have when they’re done with college anyway.
“That’s what they’ll have when they’re done with college anyway.”
Silly me scouting craigslist for used furniture for my child’s first post grad apartment. 
Maybe someone should do an article on how students decorate their off campus apartments and sorority/fraternity rooms - complete new wooden floor and high definition TV.
Now that I have seen few pictures of rooms at Ole Miss, I do think those girls kind of lack creativity. They all look the same.
@doschicos You got me on that one!
I have a friend from high school whose daughter’s freshman dorm at Ole Miss looked like that. My friend posted pics on FB. At the time I thought that this girl’s dorm room was better-decorated than my house. But I suck at decorating so that’s not a bad thing.
My own D just moved into a dorm and brought absolutely nothing decorative, I don’t think. Clearly she resembles me as far as decorating skills.
I also thought when I saw my friend’s D’s room that my friend clearly had excellent craft skills (she commented that she had made some of the items). No surprise–she was pretty artsy-crafty in high school too. The room was not what I’d have wanted in college or what my D would want. But it was nicely done and probably not all that expensive.
At my school, the sorority houses are very nice. The actual bedrooms themselves aren’t all that appreciably different from the dorms, but the living areas are beautifully decorated, often by professional decorators on the house corporation board, have beautiful built-ins, wood paneling and wainscoting, custom-made rugs, draperies, etc. What’s wrong with that?
Again, nothing I’d spend my time doing, but you know, people do Pinterest (myself included) so what the heck is the difference.
@NotVerySmart not quite cricket of you to post a sub-standard room at H when that doesn’t seem to be the norm. Here is a student blog which is definitely more in line with that at Ole Miss.
http://blogs.harvard.edu/collegeadmissionsstudentblog/2012/04/05/harvard-freshman-housing/
Look at the two Hurlbut Singles pics.
Style-wise it’s a little twee, but I’m sure I’d find how the girls themselves dress to be a little twee as well. Oh well! Not everyone needs to share my taste!
@“Erin’s Dad” Yes, I picked an outlier from a post asking “Why are some rooms at H so bad?”
Even so, I wouldn’t bet the farm on the student housed there transferring. Many people don’t care as long as the dorm isn’t decrepit.
Ole Miss is going to have this kind of aesthetic. The sororities have this kind of aesthetic as well. We’ve discussed ad nauseum the personal style differences between the northern schools and the big southern ones. It’s just different tastes for different parts of the country, that’s all. I bet there’s a lot more Lilly Pulitzer in these closets as well. Viva la difference.
Am I the only one who saw the thread header and thought it would be something along the lines if Confederate Memorial Hall at Vanderbilt?
Really, the fact that some Ole Miss students have very well decorated (and yes, twee) dorms, is not even surprising. Let alone controversial.
"Most of the decorations were found at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Hobby Lobby, Home Goods, Target, Home Depot, antique stores and things we found at our own homes,” Goodson told ABC.
I’m not a natural born decorator but you can do a pretty good job at these stores if you are creative enough.
Yes, and if one is just copying someone else’s decorating idea - notice they all had the same headboard, and bed stool.
Is this serious or tongue in cheek? What college kid has time or space to bring their foo-foo accessories with them to a dorm? Are their parents going to bring a semi-trailer or are Amazon shipments going to overwhelm the package room? I thought we were going crazy with a gel-foam mattress topper, extra sheets & pillows, first aid kit, refrigerator, microwave, desk lamp, fan, wireless router, bluetooth speakers, laptop, external monitor, desk chair, clothes, boots, coats, bike helmet etc. etc. etc. - that alone filled up a minivan and the dorm provided the furniture.
I dread having to repack all of this stuff for next year.
@1or2Musicians I saw the header and thought it was going to be about people decorating with confederate flags. So relatively speaking, this wasn’t bad at all.
I don’t think people should live in disgusting pits and I assume most people, if they’re buying new bedding, will buy things that look nice and go together and that they’ll put some pictures or posters on the wall. But let’s just say as a New Englander born and bred, this plays right into all my assumptions about southern college “girls,” their priorities and their values. I assume these “girls” will major in something not too intellectually challenging, minor in husband hunting, dedicate most of their time and effort to making sure they’re skinny enough and well dressed enough to get to join the right sorority and shun anyone who wears the wrong color lipstick or last year’s Lily Pulitzer or failed to organize matching bedding with their roommate. Listen, maybe I’m all wrong and they’re budding astrophysicists with deep commitments to social justice issues. I’d love to be wrong. But everything about the time and effort put in by two 18 year olds to a decorating project for a place they’re going to live for 9 months screams spoiled and shallow to me.
@TooOld4School Anyone old enough to go to college is old enough to pack their own stuff and to, at the very least, help pack the car.
Wow. All because a couple of girls dared to decorate their bedroom. Shame on them, right?
“dedicate most of their time and effort to making sure they’re skinny enough and well dressed enough to get to join the right sorority”
Well, they might be busy decorating coolers for their frat boys. 
http://www.gridironbelles.com/2012/04/cooler-painting-a-southern-tradition/
Joking aside, there are some pretty big differences depending on the schools one attends and the regions in which one attends.
I have to agree with most here that the style is not to my taste. But I don’t really see anything wrong with a kid putting time and effort into creating a living area that they’re comfortable in. My daughter’s taste goes more to Urban Outfitters and indie-artist posters. But based on the pinterest page “dorm ideas” she created the summer before she left for college, she, too, spent more than a little time, effort, and money into making her dorm room the way she wanted it to be. And she’s a serious student in a demanding program, who is definitely not doing any husband-hunting at this point in her life.
The need for constant upkeep was what made both us raise an eyebrow when we saw the Ole Miss room and others like it. D’s “Boho chic” seems to work a lot better than the “Barbie dreamhouse” look with the piles of books, rumpled top quilt, and general messiness that invariably creeps in (for my daughter at least) when academic, work, and social demands become more intense.
Well aren’t you a shining example of stereotypical thinking (bless your heart 8-| ).
Then again, many people across the country would assume that New England “girls” would be so high minded that they are utterly oblivious to their surroundings as well as personal appearance. They would proudly sport stringy hair, hairy legs and gain the proverbial “freshman 15” as soon as possible while happily strewing pizza boxes and crusts across every surface. Of course, they’d be majoring in something intellectually challenging (women’s studies or history of oppressed peoples perhaps?) while preferring to hook up with the scrawny, pale young man they met at the most recent demonstration against microagressions rather than doing anything as bourgeois as dating a guy who might possibly play a sport.
Gee, this stereotyping 18 year old college students from other parts of the country can be fun can’t it? Still, I’m inclined to believe that teenage girls who care about their appearance and living conditions and who have learned how to present themselves might possibly have a leg up when it comes to securing jobs when they graduate. Particularly girls who had leadership roles on campus and in sororities tend to do very well in the business world. I guess that’s just my prejudice showing but I’d rather have someone like that being the public face of my company. Fortunately, young women like this can actually be found in all parts of the country and not just (contrary to popular opinion) in the south.
PS @millie210 Yes, you are all wrong.