On campus dorm. Bedrooms are two doubles and those come furnished.
Common room kids can customize.
Freshman boys
Suggestions?
The school expects the students to provide couches? That doesn’t seem right. If you’re going to offer a suite set-up, shouldn’t it have a base couch and table?
Suites at my kids schools included furniture for the common rooms. Make sure this is NOT the case before you get anything.
Thrift shop. If it wasn’t gross before you put it in the common room, it will be afterwards.
Hold it! I volunteer at thrift shop on a very high end part of town. Our stud is very very nice…usually because folks are redecorating…or moving…which folks around here tend to do.
Merchandise is vetted before it hits the sales floor.
I think my daughter’s living room of the suite had a sofa, a coffee table and maybe a chair? There was a mix up in her assignment and she didn’t bring anything because she thought she’d be in a different suite. The other kids brought a light that looked like a cherry tree, a TV and stand (or maybe that was the coffee table?) one of those bungie chairs and that pretty much filled it up.
Less is more.
I think the boys across the hall had a foosball table
Yes, but there are thumper kinds of thrift stores (which evidently come replete with hot men 
), and then there are Macklemore kinds of thrift shops: “I found a broken keyboard, I bought a broken keyboard”.
I’m pretty sure a set of shelves are provided @ClarinetDad16. I am still waiting to hear if D16 has been in contact with her suite mates. Has your son talked with his? I’m thinking either a thrift shop once we get there or maybe a futon from Walmart.
Haha! I missed that typo!
Good stuff.
Target has a line of dorm furniture that’s inexpensive: futons, saucer chairs, butterfly chairs, bean bags, tables, tv stands, etc.
My Q still stands. I only had one kid in a suite situation but the room had a couch, table and some kind of coffee table. (I’m not a real fan of the concept, I think it’s silly.) Is that common that they give empty rooms for suites and expect the kids to fill it themselves? How does that work for poorer / FA kids who can’t just borrow dad’s SUV and run to Ikea?
Perhaps they believe it unites the kids. And it’s a residential college they live in for 3/4 years
@ClarinetDad16 and will they live in the SAME suite for all four years…or have to move the furniture.
I would still suggest checking with the school for their rules. It is very possible that they don’t allow used upholstered furniture unless it comes from YOUR house. In other words…nothing purchased from someone else.
My daughter’s apartment has that rule…because of little creatures.
At Yale the common room is unfurnished and there are no guidelines on the furniture you can bring. And yes, it is difficult to coordinate with students of varying backgrounds. And it does get complicated because there are moves to different suites each year, with varying numbers in the suites. It is best if each student purchases one item, but it does not always work that way. I took the advice here to let the students work it out. We left move in day with two chairs in the common room. Later they all pitched in to buy a futon. Someone got a table. Some more got chairs. It worked out, but not the way I would have done it.
@Pizzagirl I have a child going to the same school but different residential college. They do not supply anything other than a set of shelves in the common room.
@thumper1 I am unsure if they have the same room but do know that the suite will need to be cleared of belongings during the summer months. The school only guarantees housing for two of the four years. Near as I can tell from the rules upholstered furniture is allowed. The bedrooms have regular mattresses and not the plastic encased kind.
I don’t think it is unusual to have the university provide just the sofa (some kind of plastic) and a coffee table and let the students bring the rest. Some bring nothing, some bring too much. My nephew is moving across the street to a new apartment, and of core the move in/move out dates do not meet, so there has to be some coordination on moving, storing, moving. He’s gone to Europe. Doesnt care what the other guys work out.
It always works out.
We had success with butterfly chairs in the girls suite. But they do come with a warning for no one over a certain weight. I would not get them for a boys room. I have heard of breakage. Get something that can take a beating.
Let the kids figure it out.
I still think this is a not-very-nice thing to do, especially when Richie Rich winds up sharing the suite with Sammy Scholarship who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together and there is pressure on them to furnish this room. The whole freaking point of dormitory housing is that the students can just move in with their personal effects, IMO. I have zero idea if this is common or not – anyone know? – but for the prices that they charge for room & board, I for one think all relevant furniture should be included.
My daughter, Susie Scholarship, moved in with nothing. She didn’t care, roommates didn’t care, and I don’t think that living room could have squeezed in another chair or lamp anyway. What I didn’t like was that the suites, where 90% of freshmen live on this campus, didn’t include cleaning supplies or toilet paper, soap, or other things you’d find in a typical dorm. There was a campus store and they could buy TP there, but they had to work out who would it them, who would haul them back to the suites, who would clean the apts and take out the trash. The cost for the suite style dorms (again where 90% of the freshmen lived) were about twice the cost of the traditional dorms. I know the other parents of the girls in the suite visited a lot more often than I did (once) and I think those parents would stock them up with supplies. I sent food.
TP should have been included.
The next year she lived in a similar suite style dorm room with another sophomore and I think 2 juniors. I have no idea who brought things for the kitchen or living room or bathrooms (I never visited, have no idea what it looked like). Never had a request for anything and I’m sure my daughter didn’t buy anything. She doesn’t like TV or watch it, spent a lot of her time with her boyfriend at his apartment, so didn’t hang around at this unit much. This coming year she’s living in a rented house with a girl who lived there last year too and the house has most of what they need. The girl is getting a new bed so giving my daughter hers. Daughter also got a bookcase and desk/chair from her boyfriend’s roommate.
I think it is like fruitcake - they just keep trading stuff until everyone ends up with something.