Greetings! This here is a handy walkthrough to help you decide on how to fill in the housing form you got in the mail.

Step 1: When did you pay your deposit?

If you paid it really early (in my case I handed it in a year beforehand because I deferred my enrollment due to NS), then you have a much higher chance of getting the place you want. A late payment would be somewhere 1-2 weeks before the deadline.

Being late means you're more likely to end up in off-campus housing. For places like Mudge House, Morewood A, B, C, D Towers, Resnik House? and West Wing? you'd not have much chance getting in.

One trick to circumvent this is to look for somebody else who paid their deposit early, and suggest being roommates with them. Since Housing puts quite high priority on roommate choices, if they get the place they want you'll be "pulled in" along as well.

Step 2: Do you want a vibrant, noisy environment?

An important part of freshmen life is living in the dorm, and experiencing life in that kind of environment. Freshman-only dorms in particular are a lot more active, with lots of events planned every once in a while. You're also more likely to meet more of the people, since most dorms have an open-door policy where the doors to the rooms aren't closed so you can just drop by somebody's room to say hi. But of course you'll also see drunken people wandering around or passing out on the floor, and remnants of last night's pizza stuck to the walls.

If you think this kind of thing is for you (and even if you don't you should give it a try), consider Morewood E Tower and New House?. Mudge House is kind of in between; the freshmen levels are quite active but generally more toned down. Basically the less freshmen there are in a building the more likely its going to be more quiet.

Don't worry too much about noise affecting your ability to do work; there are lots of other places you can go to study if you need to.

Step 3: How big a factor is distance to you?

You probably can't really answer this right now, since its only really applicable after you'd walked 10 minutes in a snowstorm to get to class. But in general, if you prefer to be as close to campus as possible, the best choice you can make as a freshmen is Morewood E Tower. Resnik House? and West Wing? are right on the campus grounds, but freshmen generally don't stand a chance getting in. You could try if your deposit was paid early enough, but don't count on it.

McGill House and Hammerschlag House? aren't too far away either, and are decent places to stay. I'm not too sure about the other places in the area though.

Mudge House is less than 5 mintues from the main campus, and New House? is slightly nearer. The farthest places are off-campus housing like Cathedral Mansions.

Step 4: How much space do you need?

Standard rooms aren't too big, prime rooms are more comfortable. Most standard rooms have bunk beds (an elevated bed with the desk underneath it) so if you don't like that consider getting a prime instead.

The biggest rooms by far are off-campus; you basically get something the size of a 3-room flat for 3 people, with a living room and a kitchen. Which brings us to the next step...

Step 5: Do you want a kitchen?

Some of you may really like to cook your own food. If this is very important for you opt for off-campus housing as this will give you your own kitchen. The dorms have kitchens too but you'll be sharing it with a lot of other people and so this may not be what you want.

Step 6: Meal Plans.

If you happen to select one of the Oakland apartments as your choice of housing for the freshman year, you will be given the option of choosing the commuter plan for your meal plan which gives about 12 meals and $8 of dineXtra every 2 weeks, which is much lesser then the 22 meal blocks on the Red Plan that most freshman who live in the school dorms choose. Therefore, you will probably find yourself being able to eat more off campus food or cook the kind of food which you love to eat. Basically, your choice of food might also in some sense influence your decision on where to stay. The trade-off for an off campus housing would be the slightly longer distance, of about 5 min more, that one has to walk to school.

Step 7: Costs, costs, costs.

The most important question, perhaps. How much are you willing to pay? Use this to go through the list of places you've chosen and weed out those that are really too expensive. Freshmen year will generally be tight financially for most people because you'll have to spend money on clothes and other one-time stuff, you'll be paying a lot more than the seniors for housing, and you're on the mealplan. So if you'd rather spend your cash on other stuff or save it, perhaps go for something cheap. All the on-campus rooms are quite well-maintained anyway, so you don't really need to worry about living somewhere very run down.

And finally...

Most Singaporeans don't end up with their choices. Quite a few end up in off-campus housing because of late deposits, because of the time it takes the letter to reach CMU from Singapore. So don't expect too much. In any case you'll soon grow used to wherever you live in; have an open mind and things will be okay.