It’s almost a cliche at this point: the Target sales, Bed Bath & Beyond checklist, raiding your family’s basement for furniture. But moving into your first-year dorm and the excitement of decorating your room — free of parental oversight — is a familiar feeling for most college students.

For some, it’s as easy as slapping a “Godfather” or Tarantino movie poster on the wall, hiding party supplies in an ottoman and calling it a day. But for others, it’s an opportunity to trick out a new space, “MTV Cribs” style. For this year’s Rental Guide, we scoured some of the first-year residence halls for the best-looking dorm rooms on campus.   

Ruskin

With a shark-themed bathroom and a string light curtain, you’d think roommates Rachel Dautel, Michelle Miranda and Libby Di Trapani spent hours searching for the perfect decorations for their Ruskin apartment. But as they’ll tell you, things fell into place without much effort.

“Libby bought the string lights and the tapestry, and my mom bought the light curtain, so we put it all in the living room, and it sort of just came together,” Dautel said.

Although their apartment looks like something out of a home decor magazine, Miranda said Dautel’s room is the highlight, with a homey feel thanks to plenty of warm lighting and an “R” from the Firefly music festival’s sign, located in her home state of Delaware.

Nordenberg

As soon as you enter Alexis Abramson and Emily Richards’s room, you immediately feel cozy and peaceful, surrounded by string lights and homemade pieces of art.

“I actually didn’t buy anything for my room,” Richards said. “I literally just took everything off my walls from home and brought it here, which kind of created my own nest or space away from home.”

Although Abramson just recently moved into Nordenberg from Sutherland, she’s already made the room feel personal while perfectly coordinating with her roommate, with her fairy lights and colorful tapestry tying the whole room together.

Flickering fairy lights strung from the ceiling is what’s likely to catch your eye while walking into Max Smith-Hoffman’s triple dorm room.

“I wanted my room to be a cozy, soft hole,” Hoffman said. “Basically, I wanted to make it as cavey as possible. As long as it turned out dark and snuggly, I knew I’d be happy.”

The room is decorated minimally, with a few framed pictures from home hung on the walls, but its crisp, clean aesthetic is a rare find for a first-year boy’s dorm room.

Holland Hall

On the windowsill in Resident Assistant Kaitlyn Anderson’s dorm room, which looks out toward the Cathedral of Learning, sits a statue of a golden giraffe, legs folded criss-cross in meditation.

“My grandma gave it to me, she said it spoke to her,” Anderson said. “And my residents named it Jeffrey.”

It’s the sort of room anyone would feel comfortable wandering into, decorated in hues of pink, orange and gold, the colors of the mandala tapestry hanging above her bed. A dozen or so Pitt-themed posters are taped to the wall, which match well with the large Pitt pillow made by Anderson’s friend from home, an architecture major at Temple University.

Sitting among Anderson’s bedding is a pillow resembling a life-size seal, which she got from Sea World and aptly named “Sealy.”

“I know a lot of people hate Sea World, but he’s so cute,” she said.