<p>I was wondering what the parents out there think about dorm reps. I have visited some campuses, and some of the dorms have reputations that are downright specific. </p>
<p>There are of course the party dorms and the quiet dorms. But then there are dorms supposedly dominated dominated by certain ethinicities, sports players, majors, etc. (I know some schools set aside housing for honors programs, international students, etc. I’m talking about unofficial dorm reps, though.)</p>
<p>In your own experiences, do these labels mean anything at most schools? If so, would you ever encourage your child to live in one kind of dorm or the other? Or is it best to ignore these reputations and just pick the most appealing housing? The unviversities themselves tend to pretend these labels don’t exist, at least in my experience.</p>
<p>My school has dorm stereotypes that students usually don’t know until they’re living on campus. Somehow, students’ housing choices tend to match up pretty well with the dorm stereotypes, with of course some odd men out. Part of this could be the house shaping the student, but there are very definite personality trends in different dorms. We don’t have dorm reputations regarding race, major, sports, or anything like that; instead, stereotypes are about the students’ personalities, habits, and lifestyles.</p>
<p>For better or for worse, the college may be perpetuating these reputations.</p>
<p>At many colleges, students have to fill out questionnaires indicating whether they are noisy or quiet, whether they hope to use the dorm room for studying or socializing, whether they go to bed early or late, etc. If the colleges consistently put the more social students in dorm A and the quieter types in dorm B, they’re contributing to those dorms’ different reputations.</p>
<p>Actually, most students believe that the different dorm set-ups attract different types of students. One dorm, for example, is all singles with private bathrooms. Another is traditional dorm style with tiny doubles and hall bathrooms. Another is a mix of doubles, triples, quads, and triples and quads with kitchens (all have private bathrooms). One dorm has the “Hogwarts” look. Another has a very modern look and suite-style rooms. Some dorms are near campus while others are a bus ride away. Since there are such different dorms, I think the explanation is pretty good.</p>
<p>The dorm whose reputation is having the most stereotypical UChicago students is the dorm that is filled first–it’s a beautiful building in a great location with a pretty popular set-up. What that means is that this dorm, which is pretty small, gets filled completely with the students who applied early and sent in their housing forms right away without waiting to apply to or hear from other schools. The dorm reputation as the “most UChicago” fits perfectly with the fact that the dorm is filled early with the students most set on the school.</p>
<p>corranged, not to mention filled with those who could afford the deposit not knowing if they’d get in!</p>
<p>Silly side of the same question - my H (who wants to be reincarnated as a MAD Magazine writer) had renamed all the dorms on campus with “sounds like but isn’t” pseudonames. When 18 year old me was assigned to one named after some august former trustee named Duncan Dunn, he made the mistake of telling my mom I was staying in “Drunk and Dumb”. The reality was the oposite, but I nearly didn’t get to go…</p>
<p>Dragonmom, the kids Corranged referred to were EA admits who received their housing materials early and sent in their forms and deposits early. At the school in question you can’t do a housing deposit before being admitted.</p>
<p>Definitely. D’s freshman dorm has the reputation of being filled with very quiet, goody-two shoes kids, largely because the university president’s office is in the the same building, and theory is that the school deliberately puts only very quiet kids into that dorm so as not to disturb the prez.</p>
<p>Kids who actually live in the dorm think this reputation is a huge exaggeration if not a downright untruth. So once D was passing a campus tour group just as the guide was relating the story about the dorm full of quiet kids. She stopped and set them straight. But afterward she vowed never to do that again, because her interruption threw the tour guide off his game. She felt sorry for having done it. But the point is the school itself, in the its public tour spiels, is reinforcing dorm stereotypes and reputations.</p>
corranged: After reading a lot of the posts form students regarding the dorms at UCLA I think you’re correct on this point. Some seem to purposely pick the res halls which are the more sterotypical dorm with the bathrooms down the hall because they believe they’ll be more social and others purposely pick the ‘plazas’ with more private bathroom facilities because they want a bit more privacy. I would imagine the dorm buildings take on the personalities of the people who selected them. I guess this would only work at a campus that offered different types of dorm styles and offered the students some choice.</p>
<p>We didn’t have a choice on our freshman dorms at all, except for those who chose special-interest floors (substance-free, diversity, Muslim interest, international students, etc.). Even still, a few of the buildings were known more as party dorms because they either were isolated from the rest of the dorms or had 100+ kids per floor.</p>