Dormitories

[Guest Alastriss]

Hey I was just wondering..what are the chances that you will get your preference of single dormitories when u send in your application to either University of Western Ontario or Queens from high school? what do you guys think are the odds..roughly?

[Guest 007]

Pretty good at Queen's I'd say. There were two new residence buildings that they just opened this past year that are all single rooms I think.

[Guest UWOMED2005]

Do you really want a single room?

 

My experience was that some of the people in single rooms became isolated in first year and didn't always have as good a time in university. Having a roommate helps extend your social circle in first year - which can be pretty key if you are living in rez in a new city.

 

Then again, I lived in a guy's rez where, while technically we lived in a double room, there was a wall in between us (we shared the outer door but other than that we lived in separate rooms.)

 

ie: Wall - Wall | Door X

|-----------------------

| HALLWAY

OUT |---x-----|-------------|

SIDE |Roomate | NEIGHBOUR |

|---x-----| |

|My Room | |

|---------| |

 

So part of my bias might have to do with not dealing with my roommates' snoring, and not having to put up with him and his girlfriend all night when she was in town. (other than the obligatory walkthrough to get in)

[Guest marbledust]

lol Excellent diagram UWOMEDS2005. I like how you included a visual example in your post. I think that is the first time I have ever seen that on this board.

[Guest byjude]

I seem to remember from my campus tour many eons ago that Western's residences tend to vary greatly in design and the type of rooms offered, and I think you can request to live in a particular residence. The newer ones with the apartment-style seemed to have singles whereas some of the older buildings seemed to be more in the 1960s/70s trend of mostly doubles.

 

I don't think Queen's actually lets you specify the particular building you want to live in, just whether you want to live on a theme floor, or co-ed vs single sex. I think you can specify the new residences, probably because they cost more, but I bet the competition is also pretty steep.

 

But Queen's has some singles on specialty floors, so if you wanted to apply to those particular floors, you might increase your odds - just don't apply there for the sheer sake of getting a single room. I think there is a study floor and possibly a couple of other options where your odds of a single are high. But there are only certain specialty floors that are in the buildings with single rooms; other specialty floors (program-specific floors, for instance) are usually in the buildings with mostly doubles. Another nice thing about requesting to live on one of these floors is that if you do end up with a roommate, it's more likely you're living with someone who shares your interests, which can make the roommate situation more liveable.

 

That said though, don't let dorm style be your deciding feature in choosing a school. I understand it may be a useful way of differentiating between two similar schools, but you should also consider some related features. Which school has better food? Which school has more study space or bigger/nicer/closer libraries if you want to study outside of rez? What about class size? -- I think Western has more super-sized classes than Queen's (or at least, their larger lecture halls are a lot bigger than the largest at Queen's), whereas Queen's likes to offer a lot of seminars in upper years - do you like small-class discussion and essay-based evaluation, or do you perform well on multiple choice? (in which case, big classes may work to your advantage) Just a few other things to think about if your single-room evaluation doesn't help much.

[Guest 007]

Just to clarify about Queen's, you don't need to specify a specialty floor to get a single room and you do get to rank your preferences in terms of things like: all girls single, all girls double, coed single, coed double etc etc etc. My point was that with the new all single room residences, there are that many more single rooms to add to the multitude of pre-existing singles. Very few people I know ended up with a double room when they wanted a single in my year, which was before the new residences were built. The new residences means that there are more coed building single rooms available. Previously, there were lots of all girls res single rooms, but fewer in co-ed buildings.

 

007

[Guest byjude]

Yeah, sorry if that was unclear, there are singles in all buildings - specialty floor or not, but I've heard people have applied to specialty floors specifically for the purpose of increasing their chances of getting a single. The person I know applied to the study floor in Vic Hall because it's probably your best bet for getting a single in a co-ed building. The new residences have more singles (100%) but your odds of getting in there are much less than your odds of getting into Vic on a specialty floor.

 

And even this year, I know at least two people who applied for single and ended up in doubles, so even with the opening of two all-single residences, there is still the chance you will end up with a roommate at Queens. Not a high probability, but still worth considering.

 

The other option at Queen's is applying to live on West Campus - you're pretty much guaranteed a single if you request one out there, but you end up living 20 minutes away from campus, even further from downtown, etc. You may like that option (or not being required to purchase a meal plan!) but for most people it's a disappointing residence assignment that may or may not reveal its virtues once you become a member of its strong community.

 

Most people who want a single choose to request one on main campus, and your odds are pretty decent of getting one there. I'm just pointing out a few ways you can increase your chances, if you think that getting a single will be crucial to your enjoyment. But as others have pointed out, double rooms are sometimes more enjoyable than you might think, especially if you choose a school with a good roommate assignment questionnaire, or a school which seems to attract people much like yourself...