Every UChicago dorm, honestly ranked

Nobody hands you a dorm menu anymore. First years rank room types, not buildings, and the assignment machine does the rest. So this list is less about picking and more about knowing what you got, and what to argue about at your house table. These are my rankings, and half of campus will disagree with at least one of them.

1. Campus North

North is the nicest building, and it is not close. Elevators, air conditioning, floor to ceiling windows, and Baker downstairs. The joke is that it looks like a prison designed by Apple, and the people who say that are not entirely wrong. It runs clean and a little quiet, and how social it feels depends heavily on which house you land in. You will not care about any of that in week three of winter quarter, when everyone else is walking to breakfast through the wind.

2. South

South is the most underrated building on campus. The official name is Renee Granville-Grossman, which nobody says out loud. The rooms run bigger than in the newer dorms and Cathey sits right next door, about thirty seconds from your bed. People talk about crossing the Midway like it is an expedition. It is a street. The wind in January is real, the distance is not.

3. Max Palevsky

Max P wins on location and nothing else has to be true. You live on the edge of the quad, Bartlett is across the street, and tunnels connect the three buildings, so you can get most of the way to breakfast without a coat. The suites come with private bathrooms, which matters more than it sounds. The building looks like a preschooler colored it in, and people have been saying so since it opened. The rooms are small. Come February, the tunnels settle it.

Woodlawn, the argument

Woodlawn is the newest dorm and the most argued about, and both sides have a point. The showers are great, the dining hall is downstairs, the doubles are actually spacious, and a thousand people in one building means someone in it is your people. The other side is real too. Concrete ceilings, walls that carry sound, not enough kitchen for that many residents, and a fifteen minute walk to the quad that gets longer every week of winter. Nobody is neutral about Woodlawn. Visit a friend there early and figure out which side you are on.

Snell-Hitchcock, the exception

Snitchcock is where my ranking falls apart, because for the people it fits, it is first by a mile. It sits directly on the quad, the old rooms are huge, and its two houses carry more tradition than the rest of campus combined, including most of the Scav wins in university history. The trade is an 1892 building, so no air conditioning and no elevators. If tight house culture is the thing you want from college, ignore my order and put this first.

Burton-Judson and I-House

B-J is the prettiest dorm, especially in snow. Gothic courtyards, wood paneled study rooms with fireplaces, and small houses heavy on singles, which makes it easier to meet people than the big towers, not harder. It sits south of the Midway next to Cathey. Same trade as Snitchcock, an old building with no AC and small lounges.

I-House is the one people rank last and its residents defend the hardest. It is far, and not just from the quad, from every dining hall too. That distance is the whole case against it. On the other side, almost everyone gets a single, the walls are thick, the 1932 building might be the most beautiful housing the university owns, and the Metra next door gets you downtown faster than anyone on campus. You either love it or you hate it. I have not met anyone in between.

The part that matters more than the building

Houses, not dorms, are the unit of life here. Your house table, your house meetings, your intramurals. A good house in a mid building beats a dead floor in a nice one, and you do not get to choose either. Show up to the house stuff during O-Week and the building will stop mattering by November.

Where Pool comes in

Pool is the app for student deals around Hyde Park, free and only for verified UChicago students. Whichever dorm you land in, the neighborhood around it is where your food money goes, and Pool is how you keep more of it.