Best UMass Amherst Dorms

"In the honors college, really great location. The doubles are kind of small, but there's a really nice common room on every floor with a flat-screen TV. The people that live there are hit or miss. I met some great people but on hot days the common room smelt like body odor (a bunch of comp-sci guys that didn't understand personal hygiene). Great place for freshman year."

"Speaking for doubles in Thatcher, they are much bigger than most rooms in campus. There's enough room where you can move you rearrange your furniture without feeling claustrophobic. There are walk in closets which help with the openness feel of the room. The bathrooms in my opinion are on the nicer side. Beside the size of the rooms, location is probably the biggest pro. Its located in the Northeast residential area, and sits basically next to Worchester dinning hall. Its also near a lot of classes students will be going to. The only real con would be that there is no sort of "game" table in the lounge. Most dorms have either one or a combination of ping pong/pool/foosball table, but Thatcher as none of them. "

"Pros: elm is the closest to most academic buildings of all the honors dorms (the entrance is at the top of the hill). Unlike maple, birch, and linden which are all U-shaped with the entrance at one end, the entrance is very central. The building and the rooms are all really new and still pretty clean. The elm classrooms are attached and easy to get to if you want to study near your room. Cons: elm is probably the least social of all the upperclassmen honors dorms (they’re all much less social than the freshman dorms because everyone lives in suites/apartments)."

"Most of the rooms in Linden are suite-style. I lived on the bottom floor, which you have to go down one from the main entrance. The laundry was on the same floor and that was great. There's AC, everything's carpeted, and my suite had 2 doubles and one bathroom (shower and toilet in one room, 2 sinks and a huge mirror outside). Our common room was huge because it was the corner room. Little to no RA involvement because it's less communal than other dorms."

"Sycamore is really new and nice, like the rest of the honors dorms. The only noticeable downside in my opinion is that the layout/architecture is strange (the building is curved, so some rooms on the inside of the curve are much narrower than the rooms on the outside, the upper floors have fewer rooms, and the third and fourth floors don’t have common rooms)."