For living conditions I was extremely lucky to live in Barton my freshman year which is one of the best dorms to live in and is very nice and new. The triples aren’t bad because the rooms are huge and the kids in Barton are generally more social (dorm choices seem to give preference to athletes and people coming in with a lot of extra curricular). I didn’t go into the other main freshman dorms very often but when I did the general consensus is they are pretty terrible. The rooms were average sized for doubles and the buildings are definitely out dated and need renovation. BarH was possibly the worst because not only was it farthest away from campus, a few of my friends had forced triples which is terrible. I have visited a few other college campuses and honestly the freshman dorms weren’t that much better, just need to luck out with housing selection.
My sophomore year I got stuck with my last housing choice, Quad. This is a very similar situation to freshman housing where the doubles are pretty small and place is outdated. They are actually about to begin renovation on the quad this summer but of course right after I leave. There are a lot of great housing options as a Sophomore with places that look outdated such as Sharp, Stackwyk and RAHPs but are actually very nice. Generally the housing options get better the farther you move away from campus which is unfortunate but the on campus bus system is really good at getting people to class and will be at your door every 10 minutes or so (there is an app that tracks the buses).
After sophomore year I will be living off campus because living in the suburbs around RPI is much much cheaper than living on campus. I will be paying about $450 a month ($5400/year) including utilities for a huge single with a huge family room, kitchen etc etc and living with a few of my friends so we have the floor to ourselves. This is about $2000 cheaper than my crappy double in quad…of course I don’t get my bathroom cleaned once a week but for $2000 who cares. This is what most upperclassmen choose to do because it is so much cheaper and RPI seems to like to mooch people of the most money possible for the 4 years they are here.
The food here is meh, Commons (the main freshmen cafeteria) is ok. Assuming you aren’t a picky eater and only eat pizza and chicken nuggets you can maintain a pretty diverse diet there. Sage and Blitman are two other dining halls which seem to offer slightly better quality different food at the same cost of one meal swipe. If you decide to get away from the main dining hall options and try some of the places on campus that charge flex (on campus currency that comes with meal plan) or cash then the options are much better and more diverse. Some great places to go that (many of which I’m just discovering and trying this year) main floor or basement of student union, library cafe, Tera Cafe (at EMPAC) and the Sage beanery. These places are mostly untried by freshmen because most are on meal plans with a lot of swipes and not a lot of flex. I would say about 30% upperclassmen go off the meal plan to save money and just eat food at the places on campus not at the main cafeterias.
The place is a little rundown, especially the freshman housing and quad, but most colleges are similar. It’s mainly because of the recent infrastructure growth on campus with buildings such as ECAV and EMPAC which has definitely left RPI a little short on cash for necessary renovations. As far as paying 66k, you should not pay full ticket price to come here. If you do you are either crazy or extremely wealthy, but luckily financial aid and merit here is generous (I think over 94% of kids receive some sort of aid). If someone desperately wants to come here but can’t pay the full price I recommend going to a state school/community college then transferring in for the last 2 years to save money. It is definitely easier to get in as a transfer because of how many kids drop/transfer out.