No, as another poster noted after first year you can go into the housing lottery for your college as you like, including as a single. But some people meet one or more roommates they actually do stick with. And some people also live off campus in which case that can be with people from any college.
So part of the answer is I have always been an information sponge, and when I get a new “hobby” I tend to dive into it with a certain maniacal energy, and with a kid going to college I made this my new hobby.
Yet another part is I have bounced around higher ed myself somewhat, and also have remained plugged in through work and friends and such in various ways.
I am also by inclination and training an extremely fast researcher and writer.
And often I sort of half-remember things I have seen or heard about before, and then I can very quickly do a little research to remind myself of the details.
And the last part is it is all a big illusion anyway. As my kids eventually figured out, I will aggressively volunteer all sorts of information when I actually know it, and then just shut up when I don’t. But if you actually quiz me on things where I didn’t volunteer an answer, you will immediately find all sorts of gaping holes in my understanding.
So it is sort of like being in a high-end honors college or a small liberal arts college in the sense you are part of a much smaller community, with really a pretty full range of facilities and activities. Again this is a lot like Oxford’s constituent college system, except of course Yale is not on the tutorial system so the academic component of the colleges is not as robust. In fact I personally think the main academic advantage is the advising component, although the college seminars are cool too (see other post).
That being said, I think some people do get more out of it than others. Some people end up making most of their friends outside of their college, they do most of their activities outside of their college, they do most of their studying outside of their college, they may do most of their dining outside of their college, they may end up living outside of their college . . . . Then others are SUPER into their college, and on the opposite end of all those things.
I think most people end up somewhere between these extremes, but still very fond of the system. I think it can be hard to really explain, but your college is like your home base, a sort of oasis where you can retreat from the bigger university to a more intimate and familiar setting. And you can use that as much or as little as you like, but it is nice to have.
Edit: Sorry, one more thought to add. I think one more important aspect of all this is that since you are assigned to your college more or less randomly as a first-year, it is pretty distinct from systems where people choose particular sorts of upper-class housing communities based on interests or academics or affinities or Greek associations or so on.
That doesn’t necessarily make it better or worse, and some people love those sorts of voluntary communities within universities. But I think there is also something to be said for these colleges still being diverse communities in all the normal ways a college is diverse.
Princeton has seven residential colleges: Butler, Forbes, Mathey, Rockefeller, Whitman, New College West and Yeh. These colleges serve as both housing and dining facilities for students, and each college has its own Dean, Director of Studies, and other staff members to support students academically and personally. However, unlike Yale’s system, Princeton’s residential colleges are not as self-contained, as students are free to dine and participate in activities across all the colleges.
because they did end up giving me one – interview