The Sims Wiki:Sandbox

Dormitories are a special type of residential lots that can only be found in college sub-neighborhoods.

The Sims 2: University
Dormitory housing is one of the two types of housing available to all young adult Sims. Unlike renting a house on campus, there is no cost to move into a dormitory, so dorm housing is available to even the poorest students.

When in a college sub-neighborhood, the Specialty Lots section of the Lots and Houses Bin will contain pre-made dormitories, and each pre-made college has its own dormitories.

Editing and building dormitories
Dormitories can be edited, but some Buy and Build mode tools, and most Build mode categories, will be unavailable unless the cheat code  is set to. In addition, Buy mode will be disabled unless the cheat code is used or the dorm is occupied.

Players can also create dormitories. To make a dormitory, create a residential lot, then using the appropriate cheat code to zone it as a dormitory. This rezoning should be done before any Sims have moved into the lot.

Required and optional features
When building or modifying a dormitory, each Myne Door must be placed so the picture area faces outward, and there should only be one door leading into a dorm room. This means that multiple-occupancy rooms are not possible, nor are "suites" in which two dorm rooms share a bathroom.

A dormitory must have a cafeteria with a ShinyTyme Cooktop, counter islands, and a sink or dishwasher. The cafeterias in the pre-made dormitories all have refrigerators, but that is not required. If a refrigerator is present, the cafeteria worker will not use it when making food, but dorm residents will be able to take food from it.

Dormitories may also have mini-fridges and microwaves. Some premade dormitories have coffeemakers. Dormitories should also have bathrooms with showers. Many dorms use communal bathrooms with toilet stalls and several Strut Your Stuff communal showers, but some use ordinary bathrooms. Most dormitories will have at least one bookcase, items for building creativity and logic, recreational items, and areas for lounging or doing class assignments.

Dorm life
While living in a dormitory, playable Sims live with young adult Townies, who are often referred to as "Dormies". Even though only playable Sims receive bills, it is assumed that all students in the dorm are billed the same, so the Dormies reduce the amount of the playable household's bills. However, Dormies cannot be asked to join the household, and playable Sims moving out of the dorm cannot have Dormies move out with them. Individual Dormies will come and go at random; the player has no control over this.

Dormitory rooms use the Myne Door. This door is able to be "claimed" by a single Sim, making a room his/hers and giving him/her the ability to restrict access to the room. After a Sim has claimed a room, his or her picture will appear on the door. This picture will not change if the Sim's appearance is changed, but the player can update the picture by having the Sim unclaim and reclaim the room. Dormies that move into the dorm also claim rooms; players are given a slight head-start (about an hour of game time) to claim the rooms they want the playable Sims to have. A Dormie's door will be locked if the Dormie is asleep or out of the dorm, but will be unlocked at other times. To maximize frame rate, rooms claimed by Dormies appear empty unless a playable Sim walks into them. This also creates a "What's going on in there!?" effect, which adds realism. The contents of these rooms, and any Sims that are in them, become visible if the player enters Buy mode.

If a Dormie is moved into a playable household, either on or off campus, his or her room will become unclaimed. However, the Dormie may still remain in the dorm for a while, unless a playable Sim says goodbye to him/her.

Advantages of dorm life
There are two main advantages to dorm life. One is that it's cheap. There is no cost to move into a dorm, and bills are low. While the cafeteria has a limited selection, the food is free, plentiful, and available at almost all hours. Of course, Sims can still cook their own food in the kitchen whenever they wish.

The other is social. The Dormies are a ready-made pool of Sims for the playable Sims in the dorm to interact with and make friends with. Of course, the player has no control over which Dormies will be in the dorm at any given time, but there will always be some. It's also likely that some of the Dormies will be members of the secret society.

Plumbing, appliances, and electronics never break on dormitory lots, even if heavily used. Also, even shy Sims do not object to doing their private activities in front others, even if they would be unhappy to use a public toilet on other lots.

Disadvantages of dorm life
Dorm life does have its disadvantages, which mostly center around the Dormies.

Dormies will do assignments very often, and frequently leave unfinished assignments on desks and cafeteria tables. They may have a tendency to do research, and do not always put the books away. If a bookcase is near a television set, chess table, computer, etc., seats in front of those items may be monopolized by Dormies doing research. Dormies will not always shower when they need to, and will rarely, if ever, clean a toilet stall, shower, or bathroom sink without being influenced to clean.

Another disadvantage is that when a Sim throws a party or invites other Sims over, the guests often disappear into Dormies' rooms for hours at a time, even if they have no relationships with the Dormies. Guests cannot be interacted with while in Dormies' rooms, nor can they be stopped from going there (as soon as they start walking toward a dorm room, there are no options to interact with them). This can make it difficult to throw a successful party at a dorm. It may also make joining a Greek house while on a dorm lot a challenge, since the members of the Greek house who arrive to "check out" the prospective member need to be socialized with, but often make themselves totally unavailable.

Also, tables will occasionally get "stuck", so that they're considered to be in use even though they're not being used, which can be annoying if a Sim is very hungry.