<p>Yale’s residential college system divides all the undergraduates into 12 groups. Each college is a cross-section (i.e., there is no athletic dorm). Almost everyone is randomly assigned to a college before arriving. Most freshmen live in freshman dorms on the Old Campus–but everyone in that dorm has been assigned to the same college (freshmen live in two of the colleges from the beginning). Some meals are taken in the large freshman dining hall–Commons–while others are taken in the assigned residential college. The colleges are a center of social life, and of general advising. Colleges have their own intramural sports teams and other clubs.
Unless things have changed a lot, very few students change colleges, and relatively few move off campus. The college really creates a strong bond, and most students will find most of their friends in their residential college.</p>