I am right there with you and Virginia Woolf. I think we all need a room of one's own. I am a nicer person when I can have my alone time to recharge and regroup.

I think that moving into the house and getting to know all the girls better requires some room-sharing. I can be an introvert, but I think that for at least your first year in the house that sharing is the best. Many years ago I lived in our house for 2 years. Most of the rooms were doubles (I lived in a double 2 semesters) and 3 rooms were 3 or 4 girl rooms (I lived in these the other 2 semesters). You have the rest of your life to live alone if you want; I think that if your sorority has a house you should live with your sisters. By senior year you might be ready for a single, though ...

There is one exception - I have always thought that the idea of open-air dormers where the whole chapter slept in a giant room was kind of crazy. I don't know if I could do that.

For perspective: I'm a rising junior. My freshman year I lived mostly in a single in the dorms, then sophomore year I moved into the AGD nuthouse and had a different roommate each semester. Our house is set up so that the president is guaranteed a single, and the rest of the rooms are doubles with one triple. Three other doubles can be made into triples and the original triple a quad if necessary.

I'm friends with both sisters I roomed with, but first semester was admittedly difficult since the first sister and I were SO different personality wise and had different schedules/different things that ticked us off. Second semester my roommate was aiming for a single that opened up (which she didn't ultimately get) and I ended up moving in with my best friend (who needed a new roommate since her other best friend/roomie went abroad). It was the best idea ever -- even though she's my best friend, we get along very well as roommates. Similar schedules, same rules about "what goes", and we're living together next year as well.

I've always been more of an introvert and ALWAYS had my own room growing up, but I LOVE living with my roommate. I think it depends on personalities more than anything. Sure, you love all your sisters and have your best friends, but it's definitely easier to live in close quarters with some than others!

If you have an 8am, how do you keep your alarm from waking everyone else on the sleeping porch? I've been wondering this since I first heard of this concept.

You learn to sleep thru all but your own!

That wouldn't have worked for me. Unless I'm exhausted, my husband's alarm still wakes me up.

FWIW, I believe that everyone should share a room at some point. I had never shared a room for longer than a few nights (sleep overs, camp) until I lived in the sorority suite. It wasn't always the greatest of experiences, but I'm really glad I did it. My DH does find it odd that I did have four different roomies, though!

Needless to say, by the middle of my junior year, I grabbed one of the singles and held onto it like a life preserver!

We put them in the bed with us so it wasn't on a hard surface.

Our house had a dormer. IIRC we had wake up duty. (I never lived in.)

You put your tag on the board with the time you wanted to get up (fifteen minute increments between 7 and 9 I think) and whoever was on duty that morning came in and woke you up at that time. I think you got one follow-up after that and then you were on your own. So only the person on duty that morning used an alarm clock.

We had a wake up system. There were girls who were assigned it based on a point system. So Suzy who didn't have many points was given one shift a week to wake girls up. Girls had an option to put their names down for 630, 7, 730 or 8. So Suzy who had the 7am shift on Tuesdays would quietly wake all the women who signed up for 7. She would then wait ten minutes and make sure they got up or ask if they wanted to be put for 730. It worked really well actually. I still miss sleeping on the porch. Plus it wasn't that bad for Suzy either. They often got ready while waking people up and took quick breaks to walk the porches.

Some girls knew how to put their alarms on silent and only have them vibrate.

From a house corp standpoint (and I don't see how NPC groups would feel any different), if we're confident we can fill every single bed all of the time, no matter what, a single-room concept is great. If we could ever foresee having an empty bed, then a single-room concept can result in a lot of money burning.

There was a coed fraternity at my school, where everyone (men and women) slept on a sleeping porch, specifically, the attic. One of the house duties was a wake-up system that they called "arousal" (LOL). Whoever was on "arousal" duty slept in a room in the main house, with an alarm clock set for 5am (!). Each member signed up for a specific wake-up time starting at (I think) 6am, and the "arousal" person was responsible for quietly awaking each member at his/her chosen time.

I've heard (though never lived it) that once you get used to being woken gently every morning by an actual person, you really miss it when you have to go back to an alarm clock world. It's not the waking up part that would be my problem, it's the going asleep. Every roll over, snore, mid-dream chuckle, would set me off and I'd never sleep. Yeah for the ridiculously light sleepers of the world.

On a related note, can houses even be built these days with sleeping porches? I would think crowding and people per square foot regulations would prohibit it in new construction. Considering the last house at Iowa to be built (the beautiful AChiO house) had to include sufficient parking, I can't imagine they'd have said "but it's ok to sleep 40+ girls in 1 room!"

Having lived in two doubles, and one quad, I can say the quad was easier because everyone went to great trouble to be accommodating to one another. Living in the double with luck of the draw women, was always walking on egg shells.