<p>@nwgolfer321 If you are accepted and decide to come to Oberlin, you will receive the Big Book of Forms in late May, which contains forms about housing. You’ll be able to rank the types of housing you’d prefer: first-year experience, traditional (read: all four year housing), program housing, and co-op housing. Program housing requires an application (these are decided by program housing folks, I believe), co-ops require you to rank your choices of each co-op (these are decided by OSCA’s lottery), and the other two will place you in a dorm that closest fits your choices. (The exception is the sustainability first-year dormitory, Kahn, which will first place students who express an interest in sustainable living, and then students interested in first-year experience.)</p>
<p>Any dorm you are placed in will have a community of some shape or form, of first-years or otherwise. Because of the early arrival of first-years, even if you’re in traditional four-year housing or a program house, you will have a few days to meet and get to know other people in the space you live in, which will most likely persist once the dorm is filled with all students of all years.</p>
<p>From a personal perspective, I lived in a co-op my first year, and loved the community there, but I also spent a great deal of my social time in the nearest first-year dorm, Dascomb, but that didn’t define or shape my friendships for my whole time at Oberlin. It was just a great jumping-off point.</p>
<p>If you want to read a bit of personal perspectives on living options in Oberlin, there are a few posts on the Oberlin blogs I’d recommend:</p>
<p>Ida Hoequist '14 wrote about her fabulous first roommate experience: [“It’s</a> a Beautiful Day in the Roommatehood”](<a href=“http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/its_a_beautiful.shtml]"It’s”>http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/its_a_beautiful.shtml)</p>
<p>Karl Orozco '13 wrote about living Barrows, one of the north campus first-year residence halls: [“Cribs.”[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Eli Goldberg '12 wrote about living in Harkness, one of our four living co-ops: [url=<a href=“http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/hark_is_where_t.shtml]“Hark”>http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/hark_is_where_t.shtml]"Hark</a> is where the heart is”](<a href=“http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/cribs.shtml]“Cribs.”[/url”>http://blogs.oberlin.edu/living/housing/cribs.shtml)</p>
<p>Zoe McLaughlin '11 wrote about living in Asia House (program housing): [“Housing</a> (or, new methods of procrastination)”](<a href=“http://blogs.oberlin.edu/community/life_culture/housing_or_new.shtml]"Housing”>http://blogs.oberlin.edu/community/life_culture/housing_or_new.shtml)</p>
<p>@BassDad The floor plans are great for knowing room placement in the buildings, but the drawings are not to scale and doesn’t show the placement of built-in parts of the room, like closets, windows, or doors. They’re great for “where am I in this building in relation to the bathrooms/laundry rooms/exits/friends?” but not for room-planning.</p>