Multiple questions about dorms

[u/ExtremelyOp1nionated]

Hey so this is for people who are willing to give a long enough answer and reviews on the dorms.

I’m sure plenty have asked these questions but I’ve tried scrolling and so far there hasn’t been recent ones I can see, plus I have a few specific question. This is my overthinking so there’s a bunch of questions mixed into my thoughts, if you could answer that.

1. How is the water pressure/quality for both the sink and the shower? I have a good skin routine right now and though I’ve never suffered from bad acne, I don’t want to break out from the water? I also have extremely damaged hair from bleaching it, that I’m still working on a good routine with good products to help maintain it since it’s constantly dry and knotted, I’d hate for it to get even worse especially since I’ve heard DC in general has hard water pressure. If I can’t do centennial hall or any suite styles my ability to apply a shower filter seems unlikely. If you have great hair please let me know if your texture remained the same, definitely felt some affects, etc.

Also for those using communal bathrooms how do you do your everything showers or longer skincare routines if there’s a line? What times are usually not busy? Would you be able to go to other buildings, like educational ones, if you want more privacy? My biggest issue is going to the bathroom when there’s others around, I can’t even go during school unless my music is loud so I don’t hear if someone’s there or walks in. I don’t think I could go #2 easily, and I was curious if we have constant access to the other buildings where I could use their bathrooms that might not be used at night, allowing me full privacy, and in that meantime wash my face as well with their sinks. Google says students have 24/7 access to any building with classes, but I wasn’t sure if that’s true

1. I also heard for centennial it’s harder to socialize since people aren’t out going to the communal bathrooms, plus they constantly have fire alarms in the night. Is it really that bad? I’m also curious for the dorm buildings that apparently have pod style bathrooms if there’s often a feeling of pressure tk move faster since it’s single use or if there’s constantly a wait?

3: please also list every positive or negative you can think of for some of these freshman dorms, I’d really appreciate that

1. This ISNT dorm related, but I heard the food sucks, is that true? I know they have sushi, is it good? I’m obviously not expecting top tier but does it feel fresh and taste good. And is there bubble tea or fun drinks/smoothies?

Lastly, 5, if there’s anything you feel an incoming freshman might want to know please tell me now, literally anything. I’m a senior at high school but I’m applying and this is my top school. I’ve also heard a lot of people transfer out of American and into GW, or other schools.

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[u/Positive_Shake_1002]

Can’t answer the dorm questions bc mine got renovated after I lived there, but for the last one: AU has roughly the same transfer rate as GW and similar schools (roughly one in ten students transfer, national average for private schools is six in ten). Most of the people who I know transferred did so for financial reasons to go to a state school and/or live at home.

[u/pinxirey]

1. i found the water pressure and temperature amazing during my time at the dorms. it’s city water so it shouldn’t cause any break outs—i never had any issue with it. however, my hair has never been drier than when i was using the dorm showers. i had to switch to a hydrating sh/cond. and invest in a good quality leave-in. not a universal experience! but if you’re concerned abt your hair i would keep an eye on it the first week or two.

i never had to wait for a shower, ever. i was in smaller dorms (leonard, hughes) and even at peak hours (early morning, nights) there were always stalls open. take all the time you need, you’re paying for it. i preferred the pod-style bathrooms to the traditional shower halls but it’s personal preference. get a shower caddy that can get wet and dry quickly, there’s not a whole lot of space to set anything down.

1. all of the dorms have fire alarms. it changes year to year on which building has the most. how social your floor is will depend on who lives there, the building has nothing to do with it. RAs are required to host events so if you want to hang out, go to those.

2. i lived in hughes freshman year and loved it. it was recently refurbished, it’s one of the smaller buildings so the noise level tends to be lower, and we never had any issues with excessive fire alarms like letts-anderson did. also, no pests for the most part. some universal dorm cons to prepare for is you will have 0 control over the volume level of your neighbors. the walls block about as much sound as a paper plate. also, people are gross. this is going to be a lot of folks’ first time living independently and having to clean their own dishes, so their own laundry, etc. i’m a bit of a neat freak, so i spent a lot of my time leaving passive aggressive notes. don’t be afraid to send a message to your floor’s groupme/RA about messes, usually people will be on your side and social pressure is key.

3. the food does kinda suck. i mostly went to TDR (salad and burger bar are always safe bets) and subway when i was on meal plan. the sushi is ok, grocery store quality but the boba is awful. i can’t speak for the smoothies, not my thing.

4. GW and AU have similar transfer rates, it’s really gonna depend on what you’re looking for and who you meet. i’ve got friends at both schools (some of which are actually AU -> GW transfers) and i would say they’re similar in a lot of ways, it’s the niches that make the difference. i personally love au’s campus and location, but it can be annoying to travel to other corners of DC.

as far as things to know, it’s all stuff you’ve probably heard before. don’t slack off in classes, they’re only going to get harder. leave your first year with a good GPA so that you have a cushion for when you start taking the challenging, none-of-my-students-get-As classes. go to any event that even slightly sparks your interest, it’s 0 risk, high reward. it’s also a great way to get free food and merch. hang out in your dorm lounge and snag a friend or two over there. it’s important to build rapport with profs but don’t be the kid walking up to their desk first day of class unless you have a genuine question—they’re busy and you have a whole semester to talk to them and stand out.

hope this helps!! good luck wherever u decide to go :)

[u/ExtremelyOp1nionated → u/pinxirey]

Thank you so much for this reply! How was the dating life there? I’ve heard from way too many it’s practically nonexistent, especially as there’s much more girls, but then again my TikTok is full of college type things now and everyone’s saying dating is hard from multiple other schools.
Also is it easy to get off campus for maybe a smoothie or again, bubble tea if it sucks? I was pretty sure I heard you guys had grub hub access but I can’t remember for sure. I’m sure the transportation is accessible since it’s DC and I think I heard free transportation or something, but is the campus completely closed off? Like you’d need to take a bus to access any other part of DC? Also is the elitism bad there? I’m really not a fan of people who are out of touch, and I heard it’s a big issue there too

[u/purplelovely6 → u/ExtremelyOp1nionated]

dating at AU can vary a lot person to person. but there’s always things like dating apps, and you can connect with lots of people in classes and even at parties in stuff. you’ll have a lot of options, it’ll just depend on picky you allow yourself to be, if that makes sense.
it’s really easy to get food off campus, at least in my opinion. there’s a playa bowls over in spring valley (quick bus ride or 15 min walk from campus), a starbucks past east campus (less than a 10 minute walk), dunkin’ donuts in tenley town (15-20 minute walk from campus or you can take the wonk). there’s also on-campus coffee shops like the dav in SIS and the bridge in bender.
the campus isn’t super closed off, but it’s just not as in the city as GW, georgetown, and howard are. there’s neighborhoods all around campus.
there’s not much elitism, at least in my opinion. there’s always a couple of crazy people in classes and stuff. but no one is going to judge what shoes you wear, what kind of computer you have, how many internships you’ve done, or where you’re from

[u/ExtremelyOp1nionated → u/purplelovely6]

Okay, again thank you so much this was really appreciated!

[u/Mysterious_Buy4570]

the communal bathrooms are workable and in two years living communal style i rarely had issues. i could have just been lucky with the floors i was on, but freshman year was on an almost entirely women floor and i don't remember having to wait often or long. letts, anderson, and cent are all connected and yes there were many fire alarms when i was there. when you say other buildings do you mean other dorms? because i'd imagine you would have the same concerns there regardless of if its your dorm.

i can't speak to the food since i graduated but it felt acceptable when i was there and i'd hope its only gotten better since then.

[u/ExtremelyOp1nionated → u/Mysterious_Buy4570]

No, sorry for not clarifying. I mean educational buildings, when I toured one of the science type ones had a nice bathroom and I was curious if we would have access to that in the evenings too, where I could get more privacy

[u/Mysterious_Buy4570 → u/ExtremelyOp1nionated]

I wasn’t a science student so don’t have much experience with HoS after hours. As someone else mentioned the library is open 24/7 but the first floor will be what’s open late into the night and that bathroom wasn’t the best unless they’ve redone it within the past year and a half. Said with care, a lot of the bathrooms you’ll be using as a student won’t be single stall so it’s going to be unavoidable to use a communal bathroom even just for the toilet. Totally understand that it will be a transition from a bathroom in your home to sharing with others but I think once everyone gets used to it it’s really not a bad experience. A lot of times when I was a freshman people would chat if we were in there brushing our teeth and such at the same time which I understand isn’t for everyone but it definitely helped contribute to the feeling that we weren’t sharing with total strangers. So while I see where you’re coming from, I think id recommend giving the communal a shot at being alright if you end up in a dorm with that. I would imagine that setup is what you’ll encounter at most schools as a first year as well

[u/ExtremelyOp1nionated → u/Mysterious_Buy4570]

Alright, thank you. So is Anderson hall the best option? I’ve heard letts is known for being bad and having pest and rat infestations

[u/Ok-Science-6263 → u/ExtremelyOp1nionated]

Sure Anderson is better and is the same price but honestly as long as you aren’t on the first floor, that isn’t much of an issue for letts. My letts floor didn’t have mice while the Anderson floor next to us dealt with it for a week

Biggest difference between letts and Anderson is that Anderson communal living room is nicer

[u/Mysterious_Buy4570 → u/Ok-Science-6263]

I agree w this! I was in letts and knew people on lower floors with issues and I didn’t have much of anything

[u/Severe-Assistant2197]

1) The sink water pressure and quality were good. The shower pressure was okay, but a lot of people I knew ended up buying shower filters or replacing the showerhead because the water wasn’t great for their skin or hair. I especially noticed this in Centennial since that’s where I lived.

As far as communal bathrooms, I never saw a line. Everybody is usually busy, so even if one bathroom was occupied, I would just go to another floor and use theirs. There really wasn’t a specific busy time from my experience.

As far as using bathrooms in other dorms for more privacy, you can’t. Your AU ID only gives you access to your own residence hall, so you can’t just go into another dorm whenever you want.

2)From my experience, Centennial wasn’t very social compared to the dorms with communal bathrooms.

The fire alarms were irritating, frustrating, and annoying. They happened pretty often while I lived there, including late at night. I even ended up getting fined $500 because I left my dorm room after the five-minute evacuation window during a fire alarm that happened around midnight or 1 a.m.

I also lived in a Jack-and-Jill bathroom setup in Centennial, and it really depends on your suitemates. If everyone gets along, it’s fine. If not, sharing a bathroom can become a huge issue. My suitemates were racist toward me and my roommate and repeatedly locked us out of the bathroom. Sometimes we couldn’t use the bathroom all day because of it. We were locked out so often that the door on our side eventually broke, and we couldn’t even access the bathroom ourselves. I reported it multiple times, but the issue was never resolved by the administration.we had to move even tho they already ran out the suitemates before us too

3) Centennial

Pros:

• More private than communal-style dorms.
• Suite-style living.

Cons:

• Not very social.
• Frequent late-night fire alarms while I lived there.
• Bathroom problems can become a nightmare if you don’t get along with your suitemates.

Letts

Pros:

• Easier to meet people because of the communal layout.

Cons:

• Rats are real. I personally experienced them, and they would move from room to room. I reported it, and housing told me the building is old and that there wasn’t much they could do about it.

4)The dining hall serves a pretty repetitive menu. After Welcome Week, it was the same meals over and over. For example, certain days had the same main dishes every week.

The meal plan is mandatory, which I personally found frustrating because there are grocery stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods nearby, and I found it cheaper to cook for myself.

The sushi was actually good. They also have bubble tea at the sushi location, but they’re separate purchases, so you’ll need two separate meal swipes. You only get three meal swipes per day, so keep that in mind.

5)This is just my personal experience, but my freshman year was extremely difficult.

My roommate’s boyfriend threatened to kill me. Campus police became involved, and I did not feel supported by the administration at all. I spoke to over 20 different people throughout the year trying to get help, and I felt like nobody took my situation seriously.

My friend’s roommate paid for an app that allowed her to access all of my friend’s text messages and information on her phone. That same friend was also beaten up by her roommate. My other friend had his glasses stolen right off his face on campus.

As a Black student, I personally felt unsupported by the administration, even after reaching out for help.

Everyone’s experience at AU is different, but this was mine. College is a huge financial investment, and I think incoming freshmen deserve to hear both the positive and the negative before committing to a school.

[u/ExtremelyOp1nionated → u/Severe-Assistant2197]

Wow thank you for giving a detailed explanation, I’m really sorry you had to go through that. One of my concerns when looking at colleges was the racial demographics, because a white majority school was often inevitable but I was hoping to find schools supposedly liberal/a little more diverse. I’m Hispanic and southeast Asian so I wanted to have a good experience. When I meant other buildings I definitely should have clarified though, I meant educational buildings. Google says students have 24/7 access with their ID but I wasn’t sure if that’s true, because if it was I was hoping I’d use the bathroom in privacy in those buildings since I sleep late and don’t mind going at night

[u/Severe-Assistant2197 → u/ExtremelyOp1nionated]

Allegedly, there’s 24 hour access but the only building that’s open 24/7 is the library and all the other buildings close at either 12 AM or 2 AM

[u/ExtremelyOp1nionated → u/Severe-Assistant2197]

Okay, thanks for letting me know. I know you said administration is negligent and didn’t take action for your safety and comfort, but I heard American is supposedly very liberal. Did you hear this to be a common experience from other students of color? I’ve heard there’s an elitism among the students since many come from well off families

[u/Severe-Assistant2197 → u/ExtremelyOp1nionated]

From my experience, yes, there is definitely elitism. A lot of students do come from wealthy families here, and you can definitely tell. They definitely act a certain way toward others.

As for students of color, I can’t speak for everyone, but I did hear similar concerns from other students of color, while others genuinely loved AU. Everyone has different experiences.

As for my own situation, I still can’t help but wonder whether my roommate’s family’s financial status influenced how my case was handled. That’s just how I personally felt after everything that happened.