<p>almostover,
My recommendation would be to stay away from the dorms where you have to move out during interim since you come from the west coast. There is some storage offered during that period but my observations when picking up my son at the end of the first semester was that the kids leaving South were taking a lot home with them. All my son had to bring home when leaving Ruef was one duffel bag (of dirty clothes of course).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call Ruef rundown but neither is it luxurious. If you are looking for new you should consider the freshman dorm Kamine which has A/C and carpeting. As far as partying, that does happen mostly on the weekends both in Ruef and South. My son goes to library to study if its noisy when he needs to prepare for an exam. Ruef is co-ed by section. Its set up kind of like a split level. One half of a floor would be men and the other half (which is half a flight up or down) would be women. There seems to be plenty of social interaction though between the floors.</p>