Honest Dorm Feed Backs From Students Who Actually Stayed There (2020 edition)

In this blog, I have collected all answers I got from first year students to the question:

“ What did you like and what didn’t you like about your dorm after your first year? ”

To my surprise, so many of the students gave me such elaborate answers, that I decided I make a separate blog from the previous dorm guide (check it here). To respect their answers, I have kept all answers anonymous and have not edited them. Also keep in mind that some dorms have more feedback than others since some dorms had more volunteers for writing feedback than others. I will try to provide more in the future and will keep this post updated. (if you have finished your first year and would like to add your feedback please contact me!!!)

Thank you once again to those who helped me by sending in your feedback <3

Contents

Dorm feed backs in order of:

• La Citadelle

• Carrefour Sherboook

• New Residence

• Royal Victoria College

• University Hall

• Douglas Hall

• McConnell (Upper Residence)

• Gardener (Upper Residence)

• Molson (Upper Residence)

• Solin Hall

Dorm Feed Backs

La citadelle

“La Citadelle was a very new and modern hotel-style residence. Honestly felt like I was living in a real hotel everyday lol. Extremely comfortable, good air conditioning and warm water, the environment was always very clean. Sound-proof walls, generally quiet residence, I have no complaints at all. It was really the “dream residence” I could hope for, but that’s probably why the price of it was ridiculously expensive! I guess a downside is that it’s a slightly further walk from campus (like 3 more minutes compared to RVC), but that’s not a big issue in my opinion. (New Res is even further lol, and Upper Rez is up the hill so I’m not complaining about La Cit hahaha) Also, La Cit doesn’t have a real cafeteria so every time we want to eat a proper meal we’d have to go over to C4 or RVC. But we do have a snack bar/café that sells sandwiches, pizza, desserts and leftover cafeteria food from the other residences LOLL.”

Carrefour Sherbrook

“Don’t go here except if you get a single room” (had a bad roommate)

“) i liked the closeness to campus, the suite rooms, the gym in the building, the study room on the 20th, the closeness of rvc for food, the availability of food in the building for emergencies, the people (i found that 95% of the people were super open to connect and i made the majority of my friends in res). things i didn't like were the layout of the washing machines (i wish it was like citadelle where all of the machines were in one place, so you wouldn't have to hike up or down 2 flights to check for another... and maybe even another. it was good exercise though lol), the fact that the washing machines were broken a lot of the time, the frequency of fire drills, the fact that we werent allowed to use cooking equipment even in the common room.”

New Residence

“having my own bathroom was amazing. Didn’t feel like I was living in a dorm because the room sizes were great. Made some amazing friends on my floor. Very convenient location, SAQ (alcohol shop), supermarket and Vincent right below in the underground mall.”

“What I liked:

• Private bathrooms : Can’t emphasize this enough.

• Relatively quiet : Sometimes a neighbor can get a bit loud. The doors to your room don’t insulate sound very well so you can usually hear all the conversations going on outside in the hallway. I was near the stairwell so I would often hear the door slamming and that was pretty annoying.

• Proximity to campus : It’s location is very close to campus. You also avoid having to go up and down a steep hill every day like the people in Upper Rez do.

• Really close to the grocery stores and other food places : On campus, the nearest grocery store is located in the underground mall connected to New Rez. Being able to just spontaneously get groceries is a really big plus

• The underground mall : It’s really one of the few places in Montreal that has an underground mall connected. That mall has a Gym, a spa, a nail salon place, SAQ (liquor store), a grocery store, a Chinese restaurant or two, and a dollarama. It’s literally everything a university student could ever want in a mall.

What I didn’t like

• The food : As a vegetarian, New Rez has really bad options for me. I only recommend having breakfast there occasionally. It’s much better and enjoyable to go to RVC. If you do end up living at New Rez, consider getting instant oatmeal, ramen cups, or Mac n cheese cups for your dorm room. You will always have access to a microwave. Also I had an electric tea kettle which allowed me to make tea in the morning and oatmeal for breakfast. Pair those options with some fruit from downstairs and you’ll always be fine.

• The people using the New Rez ballroom :Okay, this one is not really such a big issue but it was bothersome. Basically, the New Rez ballroom is THE event center for conferences and meetings for McGill University. McGill Med School had their white coat ceremony in the New Rez ballroom. Montreal Companies could also rent out the space from McGill to hold corporate conferences there etc. The reason I say it can kind of be annoying is that I never felt comfortable going to the dining hall in anything less than normal clothes. Meaning you may not want to roll out of bed and just hop downstairs for a quick breakfast sandwich because you may run into a group of professionals in suits :) Same goes for going to Premier Moisson. They have an outdoor entrance so you do get a lot of just normal Montreal customers in there as well. “

Royal Victoria College

“ I absolutely love RVC west wing, not really any disadvantages for me. The only thing I will say is if you don’t like shared bathroom and showers. It might not be good for you. But for west wing is all girls, so I am fine”

University Hall

“what i liked:

- room sizes - uni hall has some of the most spacious rooms of the dorm-style residences

- close-knit community - we all knew each other’s names and i was comfortable striking up a conversation with just about everybody in uni hall

- ample laundry facilities - y’all might not think this is a big deal now but it is i promise. i had friends from other residences come over just so they could do their laundry here

- living! in! a! converted! church! i cannot overstate how cool this is

what i didn’t like:

- communal fridges - stealing of perishables was rampant, and some people tended to… forget about their food in the fridge

- old building - appliances skewed old and inefficient, fuse blows would happen from time to time, and stairwells and corridors were echoey

- pests - we dealt with hella mosquitoes in the fall, a wasp nest in the fall, mice in the winter, and silverfish in the basement throughout the year”

“i honestly loved unihall- bc it’s so small & warm i think it really invites you to get to know your hall mates. from what i hear there’s a lot more independence in that you can have friends stay over for any length of time and not deal with front desk. (in that way it’s kinda just like apartment living). it’s location is also IDEAL (not joking when i say i woke up for some 8:30s at 8:15 & got there on time). also for someone who cares a lot about interior design the rooms were amazing.

The biggest downside was definitely the bathrooms. (they were very old and very gross). the only other thing was that the kitchen on my floor got EXTREMELY gross and messy near the end as it’s mostly left up to your floor to keep it clean and some people seemed to not understand basic hygiene. that being said the other floor kept their kitchen sparkling clean year round so i guess it depends more on the group of ppl you get put with.”

“The space is really really conductive to a community feel. It is really easy to meet people, you feel like you're living with others rather than isolated in a dorm room. It's small enough (about 50ppl) that you can get to know more or less everyone. There is a kitchen if you like to cook. It is very very close to campus.

Only problems are that it is a pretty old building with lots of old building type problems and there is no dining hall in the building itself (full kitchens though)”

“- there's very little I didn't like. No AC but that didn't bother me too much when the windows were open it was cool enough

- I LOVED the view of university street from the kitchens.

- I loved the kitchens, they're relatively spacious and 2 fridges in each gives plenty of space for all residents on each floor

- I loved the building itself, it's old and gorgeous, feels like living in Hogwarts

- being a dorm of about 45 kids, it was generally very peaceful, a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of day to day uni life

- I love the rooms because a lot of then had high ceilings, and very spacious”

EXTENDED ANSWER FOR dorm personality QUESTION:

“a pretty mixed bag actually! i think uni hall’s “personality” differs from year to year, not least because uni hall houses so few people compared to the other residences (45 compared to the 250+ for other residences) and are therefore a little more difficult to generalize. in my year there were artsy kids who wanted to live in a rez with “character”, studious kids who wanted to live close to campus, and partying kids who were enticed by residence life’s description of uni hall as “dorm-style living of upper residence [but with] the best residence location”. that said, just about everybody was super chill - there’d often be people you wouldn’t expect to be spending time together discussing anything from the faults of capitalism to the best instant ramen (it’s 出前一丁 and you can’t change my mind, many have tried) in the corridors and common areas, and i for one ended up making friends with a bunch of people i didn’t expect to befriend, much less get along with. “

Douglas Hall

“ I loved everything especially the douglas breakfast. The people were also great ! Good for bonding and the building itself is beautiful. The mcgill gym is 7 minutes away max. The hill was kind of tedious but after a while it felt okay and it was a good workout It was a bit annoying to not be next to the provigo or the metro but it's not like it's a big deal. Another good thing is that overall the people that were there studied and partied so you had a good mix. Make sure u are nice to the security guides!”

“The only thing I didn't like about Douglas was that the dining hall wasn't open on the weekends. Other than that, I couldn't speak more positively. I became close with the people who worked there, because they were so sweet and I could tell they genuinely cared about our first year experience. My best friends in the world are the people that lived on my floor; to this day we do everything together. Douglas was beautiful; the architecture is a daily reminder of how lucky you are to live there (a Harry Potter-esque dining hall, a ball room with a piano, a private library, etc). And here is a golden tip: go to breakfast and ask Mike for a breakfast sandwich on a bagel!”

McConnell (Upper Residence)

“I loved mcconnell and upper res because it was one big community and there was always a party going on when I felt like going out. People from other residences often told me they were bored in their res or they found it hard to make friends and that they wished they were in upper res. I found it easier to make friends in mcconnell because it was such a social environment and there were many opportunities to meet people at the pre’s in the common room. During finals when I would try to study, people would sometimes be too loud for my liking but there was quiet hours starting at 9pm so it wasn’t terrible. The designated study room also got pretty loud so I’d go to the library most of the time. Overall it was a great experience”

Gardener (Upper Residence)

“✓cool energy, like no matter what time you can always find someone around the Rez to hang out with (for some I was always in the corridors at random times😂). Very social people.

✓ the first week is crucial (which I missed sadly). Like of course you can always make friends later but then everyone already knows each other by then.

✓ if ur in gardner and you get a room on the far left there's a f***ing snow machine that starts at 5 am that's suuuuper annoying 😣

~ (Don't write this plainly but like I personally found it quite hard to make meaningful convos with Americans but that's just their culture and stuff, like their nice and all but I personally feel that talking points die pretty fast. Now that's just my personal opinion I'm sure if u know them well it's pretty easyyy, it explains why I don't have that many close friends in upper) ~ “

Molson (Upper Residence)

“loved everything, everyone was close together, closest to BMH, literally 0 complaints”

Solin Hall

“PROS:

- You can explore more of Montreal with the metro pass

- You’re given a choice of whether you want the meal plan or not; you can save a ton of money by choosing not to get one.

- Saint Henri is a phenomenal neighborhood which has plenty of culinary, artistic and essential amenities

- Close access to Alexis Nihon, Canadian Tire, Sports Experts, etc.

- This one is more subjective, but I believe Solin is the residence to choose if you want to become independent quickly; having to cook for yourself, budgeting your time and familiarizing yourself with Montreal’s transportation will prove to be beneficial in the long-run.

- Rewarding bike rides to school (uphill on the way to McGill, downhill on the way back).

CONS:

- A bit ‘far,’ but remember that it takes the same amount of time for Solin’s residents to get to school as it does for most other residences

- The metro pass (if you choose to buy one) is an additional monthly expense ($52)

- Again, this is subjective, but cooking for yourself could be a burden if you don’t work out a routine; getting to campus for meal plan meals may be a bit tedious if you choose to go with that option.

- There’s been a couple of times where I’ve had to take an Uber or walk back to Solin as a result of the metro closing for the night.”

“- Like: the bubble community and you seem to know everyone in the dorm, very close to metro so it's not that bad taking metro to school at all (I would definitely prefer Solin to Upper rez interms of travelling to school esp during winter), our residence admin Howard was a BIG SWEETHEART he's always so kind and sweet to everyone.

- Dislike: I don't dislike anything tbh it was a great experience at Solin and I'm sincerely really glad I chose Solin”

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I hope you found this useful!!

Check HERE for my original blog breaking down all the dorms for more in depth information of each dorm.

-Mai