Sophomore Housing

Marian
Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:34:32 +0000

My daughter had no interest in Greek life, either, mostly because she has no interest in alcohol, which seems to play a rather large role in Greek life.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea for a sophomore to live off-campus, necessarily, but I will tell you, from my son’s experience at another university, that people living off-campus do not tend to make new friends where they live as easily as those living on-campus do. My son spent his junior and senior years in an off-campus apartment building and says that he never met anyone there; he interacted only with the people in his own apartment and with friends that he met in other contexts. He was glad that he had stayed on campus his second year (even though he, like his sister, got screwed in the housing lottery and ended up living far away from his friends). He met a lot of new people in his sophomore dorm and enjoyed their company. By junior year, he had a large social circle and was more ready to live off-campus.

People who live off-campus at Cornell can still be on a meal plan, but as far as I know, most of them don’t do this – or if they do, they choose a minimal plan. This is for the purpose of flexibility. A person who is not on a meal plan can still eat in a dining hall if she wants to; she simply pays cash for the meal. But she also has the option of eating in on-campus cash-only facilities (which tend to have more flexible hours than the meal plan dining halls do), eating in places off-campus, or buying food and cooking it herself.

As for the gyms, they are not a perk that comes with living on campus. You have to pay for them regardless of where you live. This is Cornell, remember. There are extra fees for practically everything.

Edited to add: It is my impression that it is much easier to get a single as a freshman than as a sophomore, simply because there are a lot of singles on North Campus, especially in Dickson and Balch.