Agustin Torres | Exaggerations plague Penn's housing brochures

Let's play a little game. I'll give you two description of one of Penn's college houses, and you'll try to guess which one is more accurate.

For the moment, let's call our test case "Gutmann College House."

Gutmann is the complete college house. It is ideally located near major academic buildings, libraries, retail shops and athletic facilities. There is a pottery studio. There is a popular and social lounge equipped with a grand piano for staging cultural and musical programs. While Gutmann's facilities are extensive, students are primarily drawn to its community atmosphere. The house architecture encourages smaller communities on each floor called suites. The "suite life" offers lively student interaction and friendly competition in athletics, games and the arts.

Guessing should be a piece of cake, since all of the above sentences come from the 2006 college house brochure, an official source of information that incoming freshmen receive before submitting their housing applications. Here's the alternative description:

Gutmann is not the complete college house, simply because there's no such thing as a complete college house. It is really close to David Rittenhouse Laboratory, the ugliest building on campus, so ugly that it's almost as if it had been designed by blind architects. The location is not necessarily ideal, unless you're an Engineer, in which case DRL and the Towne Building will be your homes. While the facilities are extensive, it's always hot as hell, since air conditioning didn't make the list of "extensive facilities." This, of course, is what creates a warm, social atmosphere. The house's minimalist architecture encourages smaller communities in each floor, because the rooms are so small that you won't stay there for long unless you enjoy the sensation of being in a prison cell.

Welcome to Hill College House!

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't hate Hill. But the building can certainly be improved. A lot. How else do you explain that, when residents are asked where they live, they regret not saying "the Quadrangle?"

Still, Hill was my home during freshman year, and it allowed me to meet many people and make some of my best friends here at Penn. Certainly, I will always hold Hill close to my heart.

But the problem is with the housing brochure and its unrealistic depiction of the college houses.

"I like the place, but the room is just tiny. I would've liked to know how large the rooms were before I chose it as a college house," said Engineering freshman Eric Chu, who currently lives in Hill.

Like Eric, many freshmen base their housing choices on official materials like the brochure. While the rooms' dimensions are available online, along with two videos, the fact remains that the brochure is misleading.

The brochure goes on to say, "Hill is known for its successful parties, dances and live band concerts." Live band concerts? Live band concerts! Have they even been to Hill?

As an international student, I was not able to visit Penn before completing my housing application. The only sources I had to make an informed decision were the aforementioned brochure and the - back then - only video, both available on the Housing and Conference Services Web site. Other unofficial sources, like the online admissions forum College Confidential, provided much more detailed information, both good and bad. However, not everyone knows of sites like that. And for those students that live abroad and who for whatever reason don't watch the video, the brochure may be the only source of information left.

"The brochure definitely only talked about the positives of a dorm," College freshman Armena Ballard said.

A housing brochure's main aim should be to provide students with valuable information for making informed decisions. It shouldn't be an idealized representation that avoids the negatives. While it should certainly motivate incoming freshmen instead of scaring them away, this can be done with a balanced perspective - or at least without blatant lies like "live band concerts" or "successful parties."

So, prospective students, take the current brochure with a grain of salt. Look for other sources of information. Remember, Hill is known for its tightknit community. But it's also known for its tiny rooms and its lack of air conditioning.

Agustin Torres is an Engineering sophomore from Monterrey, Mexico. His e-mail address is torres@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Monday Burrito appears on Mondays.

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