A note to freshmen: the Vanderbilt housing assignment process is about as fair as the Holocaust. (It's ok, I'm Jewish).

People like to believe that each of the three dorms has it's advantages and the pre-college questionaire (Are you loud or quiet?Smoker or non? Social or a hermit?) will place you in the dorm that you best belong in. This is not true.  I personally think the VU Housing Office could make great use of a Sorting Hat (Think Branscomb: Gryffindor, Vandy/Barnard: Hufflepuff, Kissam: Expulsion from Hogwarts followed by slow torture and subsequent death at the hands of Voldemort's snake), alas, no such luck.

Some of us who have never lived in Kissam have heard rumors that the single rooms are advantageous in getting ass, that entire halls bond because of their seclusion on the other side of campus, and the lack of a Munchie Mart provides less cravings for late night snacks and thus a Freshman 5 rather than a 15. The reality is that no matter how good looking and easy you are, it is difficult to get members of either sex to spend the night in Kissam, because despite their slurred words at the time, even the most inebriated of students realize that the cross-campus walk of shame is totally not worth the 2 minutes of head they'll get before one of you passes out, that everyone on your hall will be so bitter about their placement that you will never learn their names and that Kissam, by some wierd "fluke" in the system, has more fat and ugly students than the rest of the dorms combined.

Additionally, the 10X10 cinder block walled rooms and the hallways with a midnight lights out policy eerily echoes the conditions in concentration camps. Or Azkaban ($20 to anyone who can disprove dementors in the closets).