At Harvard and Yale, and to a lesser degree, at Princeton, exist the only patriarchal systems. These systems provide meals for the overwhelming majority of students and ensure that most of them live with, and to some extent work and play with a certain group of peers for most of their college career.

The question at Dartmouth is how much the school ought to try to gain the advantages of the systems at Princeton and Yale. "The question [at Dartmouth]is whether it is better to encourage moving or if continuity is desirable," says Burk, Dartmouth director of student housing. "Right now we're trying to accommodate both," he says.

Burk says that both the residence halls have characters of their own, and that there is a popular intramural program operating out of the houses. He adds, however, that the turnover rate is perhaps too high in the dorms, with students entering and leaving at the end of every quarter.

It is possible that changes may be implemented in the future that would encourage students to remain in their dormitory clusters, he says. "We are all aware of the house systems, but we are not thinking of them in terms of models for out system," he adds.

Students at Columbia, like students at Penn, said that the type of room they lived in was more important to them than the dorm. "We go more by what type of room we can get than which house we can get," says Columbia freshman Julie E. Schwartz.

At other Ivies without house systems, fraternities can act as substitutes for many students, giving them meals and a set group of peer. Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown all have active Greek systems.

At Brown about 600 students lives in the Wriston Quad, home of the university-built buildings that house the school's seven fraternities and two sororities. Also in the Quad are "social dorms" which are fraternities specific to Brown, often called "mellow fraternities."

Yale's 12 residential colleges have their own reputations and legends and fosters a great deal of sprit and rivalry.

"There's a great deal of college spirit," says Williams of Yale's residential colleges, "and many activities take place within each college, such as intramural athletics, choruses and parties."

The price-tag of dormitory living is fairly constant throughout the Ivies, tending to cost students an average of $2200 per school year, with some schools charging extra for rooms that have been newly renovated or have kitchens.

Columbia offers the widest range of room costs. The cheapest room, going for $1980 per year, is a single which is a spokesman at the housing office, who did not know the exact dimensions, describes as "way, way small."

But students who manage to get into a highly coveted suit with kitchen and living room in East Campus, a new dorm, will have to pay a little over $36000 for the room next school year, the spokesman says.

Penn and Cornell have a similar system, using a detailed prices scale of charge students for their rooms. Prices vary depending on which dorm they are in, the size of the rooms, numbers of roommates and added features such as kitchens and bathrooms within suites administrators say.

Student living in the Quad at Penn, which 1000 undergrads call home, are charged differing rates according to whether their room has been renovated. Penny Fussell, a spokesman at the housing office says that improvements would be completed within two years, but until then, unrenovated rooms would be priced as much a $6000 per year less than their updated counterparts.

Yale, Harvard and Princeton all have essentially one uniform room rate, mainly because the options for students are much fewer. Yale leads the group, charging $2550 for next year, followed by Harvard at $2065 and Princeton at $1971.