Residence hall stereotypes weigh on minds of incoming freshman, past residents

Seven thousand incoming freshmen received their housing assignments last week, and Tyler Cottman, who requested to live in the Central neighborhood, was assigned to Wright Quad.

Though he has never attended a class at IU before, Cottman already has an opinion of what the dorm scene is like.

“Northwest is where the partiers live, Southeast I do not really know anything about, and Collins is the one that looks like Hogwarts,” he said. “I requested to live in Central for its convenient location and because it does not seem to have a reputation associated with it. It seems to be where the normal students live.”

While Cottman requested a place to live based on a lack of reputation, residence hall stereotypes whispered between past and future IU students often have a real effect on where incoming freshmen decide to live.

The majority of freshmen requested to live in Northwest due in part to its reputation.

“The No. 1 requested neighborhood is Northwest — around 3,500 of the 7,000 incoming freshmen preference it,” said Sara Ivey Lucas, assistant director of IU Bloomington Residential Programs and Services. “There is a mis-impression that all freshmen live there, when really less than 3,000 students do.”

This neighborhood includes Briscoe Quad, Collins Living-Learning Center, Foster Quad and McNutt Residence Center.

This preconceived perception might be a result of advice given by older relatives and friends who attended IU, Ivey Lucas said.

Some incoming freshmen also mentioned visiting college gossip websites, such as
Collegeprowler.com. On the website, a business student graduating in 2013 advises to “definitely go Northwest campus if you are majoring in business” and that “Northwest is the most social area of campus ... about 50 percent of Northwest residents go greek.”

One student graduating in 2013 wrote, “Living in the Northwest dorms is the best social atmosphere and the most normal students around.”

Users of Boardreader.com agreed.

One student wrote, “The partiers/pre-greeks live in Northwest.”

While Northwest is the most requested area on campus, said Ivey Lucas, Central is also high on the list, with around 30 to 40 percent of students listing it. The Central neighborhood includes not only Teter and Wright quads and Ashton Center, but Eigenmann Hall.

Sophomore Danielle Wooding chose Central for the location and because of her roommate.

At the end of her freshman year, though, Wooding felt that while the food courts and location were convenient, Northwest would have been a better fit for her.

“I really liked living (in Wright) except for the fact that I lived in the ‘Virgin Vault,’ which had only girls,” Wooding said. “I felt like it held me back from meeting new people. Also, a lot of people didn’t rush from Central. I had wanted to do it before I came to college, so where I lived didn’t affect that. It was weird going through rush, though, because there wasn’t really anyone around me, especially when I came back early from Christmas break.”

Sophomore Nick Fox found that though residence halls might be in the same neighborhood, they can be very different.

“I was late applying for housing, so I got stuck living at Eigenmann first semester,” Fox said. “The rooms were big and nice and the food was delicious, but I didn’t like it because my roommate and hall mates weren’t the type of people I wanted to be friends with, and it was hard adjusting to college without friends living close.

“I moved to Wright second semester because it was cheaper, closer to campus, and I wanted to have a new start on roommates and hall mates. It was a better experience second semester.”

Because the Southeast neighborhood, made up of Read Center and Forest and Willkie quads, is located near the Jacobs School of Music and the School of Education, it is attractive to students majoring in music and education.

While junior Ingrid Nelson, a political science and Russian major, said she liked living in Forest her freshman year, she did find other students did not always understand her living in that particular residence hall.

“When I decided on IU, I didn’t know much about the campus in terms of which dorms were popular,” Nelson said. “I ended up in Forest randomly. I didn’t feel like people judged me, but I did feel like people judged Forest as a dorm. Usually when I told people I lived there, they told me how bad they felt for me or asked me how much I hated it. I think a lot of people associated Forest with weird, random students.”

Dorm dwellers can also opt to live in one of the learning communities on campus. Learning communities are gathering student interest around campus, with now about 30 different communities to choose from. One of the most well-known is Collins Living-Learning Center. Incoming students, such as sophomore Patrick Apfelbeck, often learn about this residence hall through information sent by RPS.

“I was sent a letter about Collins,” Apfelbeck said. “I decided to live there because it felt like a small liberal arts college even though it was located in IU’s huge campus. The only negative thing about living there was that I did feel at times stereotyped.

“Collins is very diverse and there are a wide range of people, not all like me. By the end of the year, though, 90 percent of my close friends lived there, and I ended up not really caring what other people thought.”

Collins has one of the highest retention rates of any residence hall on campus, with more than 50 percent of residents living there another year, Ivey Lucas said.

While Apfelbeck said choosing to extend his stay in Collins was beneficial, junior Rachel Peterson said she thought the stereotyping associated with the dorm could hold back students from branching away from the residence center.

“People in Collins are definitely stereotyped,” Peterson said. “I think that, to an extent, living in Collins affected my rush experience. Unlike dorms like McNutt, Collins had a very few number of girls go through recruitment, and those people not going through rush in Collins were sometimes really against greek life.”

And Ivey Lucas recommends not taking these stereotypes too seriously.

“You can always find exceptions in each dorm, and each dorm has its own advantages and resources,” she said.