UC Santa Cruz Dorms Ranked

"It's an old building and it retains the old pipe in the floor heating but it's much more spacious than most regular Cowell Apartments. Perhaps the best apartments on campus besides the Porter Apartments."

"Merrill is pretty close to all of the major buildings at ucsc so that’s nice. The rooms are pretty nice and the bathrooms are clean if you don’t have bad dormmates"

"Although it’s a hike to Crown, it is much safer and quieter. Upper quad is renovated with private bathrooms. Gave me strong legs."

"I lived in Building 5 on the second floor and loved it! Laundry room is really close, buildings are at edge of the forest (quieter but not isolated + more relaxed area), and even tho you're at the top of the C9 hill it's still a lively community if you reach out to your neighbors. The walk can be annoying cause it takes roughly 4-5 min to get to the bus stop depending on how fast you walk but for where you are on campus it's really nice. However, I will acknowledge I had really friendly flat mates and we had a very harmonious school year so my answers may be biased. I shared a triple and I think it was the best option for apartment housing. The room is so spacious compared to the other apartments that had two doubles and two singles which may seem more private but realistically can be claustrophobic. The walls in the apartments are thin so you can pretty much hear what's going on in the other rooms but that's how it is for most residences on campus. The C9/JRLC apartments have so much kitchen space including a pantry, kitchen shelves, and a fridge. There is also a storage closet and the bathrooms have below sink storage, a column of pull out drawers, and a medicine cabinet. There are two possible arrangements for bathrooms: shower and toilet in one private room or shower and toilet in seperate closed door rooms. There is no ventilation in the latter for the toilet so I recommend getting poo-pouri in that case. Also the toilet pressure is not good so expect a quarterly toilet overflow. When it rained our apartment did get hella ants which I was fine with because I'm used to them but understandably feels itchy. If you call the Fix-It maitenance team they help with the problem though so keep in mind even with these maintenance issues there are still resources on campus to help fix them. Overall I think the ILC is one of the best places to live on campus because it's close location to all the major amenities on campus, the bus loop always passes by, it's closer to the forest (where people enter to go to the buddha shrine), and the apartments have a lot of space. Also you can see banana slugs behind the aparment!"

"The apartments are nicely set up 3 singles, 1 triple or double so the occupancy of each apartment ranges from 5-6 people. Some apartments bigger than others but not terribly small. In a quiet area of campus but can be far from certain areas on campus. A con is there are no generators here yet (plan to install them 2023) which sucks when the power goes out."

"I transferred into Porter A in 2018. It was great! I lived behind a large tree and all my flat mates were really nice. I lived in the gaming floor. It was really clean but what made it great was the people. We all respected each other and the space. I think living in dorms usually depends on the people. Otherwise, the flat can just be chill nonetheless. The rooms are decent, ethernet internet was fast. Service requests were answered fast as well. There are reports of ghosts which i have personally experienced but nothing crazy."

"6 person apartments, 2 singles 2 doubles, two bathrooms. Two floors is really nice, and the upstairs apartments have huge closets and nice living room/ kitchen area. Very cute and lots of natural light. "

"They have the nice water fountains and you get to use your slug ID as entry into the building and your own dorm. Also you can bring your own router for faster internet. Kinda far from the rest of campus but actually pretty updated."

"I'm glad I picked these dorms when I was a freshman. The dining hall was a 5 minute walk, the gym was close, you had a perfect view of east field and the ocean, and all my classes were really close by! I lived in a triple dorm and had the top bunk of a bunk bed, and I didn't mind it. Make sure you bring flip flops for the bathroom because it can get a little dirty at times."

"It is great, been living here since past 2 months, the experience has been good so far... would recommend if anyone is considering"