Like Neel, the first reviewer, I've lived at the Metropolitan (aka the Met) for three years from my sophomore year to the end of my senior year. Here's my take. THE GOOD: LOCATION: People sometimes gloss over this when giving reviews of the Met. The Met is *literally* one block away from campus. You just need to cross one street, Bancroft Way, and boom you're on campus. The location is superb, and it's perhaps the biggest reason why rent comes w/ a high price tag. Though the road going from Blackwell Hall to the Met is kind of sketchy at night because of the lack of lamps, I think you're not as likely to get mugged since your commute back home to the apartment isn't as long as walking to an apartment on College Ave. HEATING/COOLING: Ventilation is poor as Neel said, but you can mitigate that problem by purchasing an air purifier that filters and pushes air throughout your small room. Each room at the Met comes with a heating rack that works very well, especially since small rooms heat faster. I had an issue one month though that the heating wasn't working; it turned out that management can disable your access by accident. But no biggue, just file a maintenance report on the tenant portal to get it sorted. During September/October when it's hot, my room was remarkably cool. In the winter, it was comfortably warm. SPACE: Though the room in your suite is small, the communal spaces are pretty spacious. Options range from the rooftop, lounges on the 2nd-5th floors, and even your own living room. My suite was 401, so it gets a lot more space since it's a "corner suite." Whenever my friends were fretting about where to hang out, I was able to always offer up my place since it was large enough. THE BAD: NEW-ISH: I think the Met is about six years old now. When I moved in, the facilities (laundry machines, elevator, etc.) were all working really great. My personal suite was small and already had several stains on the carpet though, but I overlooked it. In 2019 though, I would say that the amenities are noticeably worn down. Over the course of the year, you notice that many things start to break down around the apartment. The maintenance folks only replaced one of the two burnt out bulbs per lighting fixture in your unit. The ceiling lights in the lounge burn out so that by the end of the winter semester the lounges get to be very dark. One year, the laundry room on my floor (equipped with three drying machines and three washing machines) experienced two broken washing machines. There ended being a bottleneck of people waiting to use the washing machine. And the laundry machines are on every other floor, so that one washing machine had to accommodate two floor's worth of students. The management does fix these issues, but they seem to only do it during the summertime, before a new academic year. If something breaks down during the actual year, the chances are slim that it'll get repaired. SUITEMATES: This is an issue that the management initially does not have much control over. You can request friends to be your suitemates and the management will pair you up, but if you don't have friends who can afford the sticker price you'll be living with other students. I lived in a suite with two other students, and it was a lot to handle. I had a suitemate who was very friendly, and lived with me for all three years of my time there. He was a pleasure to live with, but his girlfriend was over almost all the time since I moved in sophomore year to when he graduated a semester before I did. In the other suite, I had an annually changing cast of of suitemates. One year, I had a suitemate who smoked hookah in his room and in the living room despite the Met having a no-smoking policy. I alerted management to this, but they could only promise me that they would not renew his lease for the next year. This was a moot point because the suitemate was a senior and, barring him failing any courses, was already set to graduate and leave Berkeley. The hookah's smoke would permeate throughout the whole suite, and I could not sleep well at night for a semester. The third suitemate also allowed a friend of his to sleep in the same suite as him for a little over a semester (the friend brought in a mattress and slept on it on the ground). All of a sudden, I found myself living in a suite with five people (including myself) in what should have originally been a suite for three people. The bathroom, living room, and kitchenette areas were thoroughly dirty from this. Point being, unless you live with people you know and trust, you may end up needing to clean up after others yourselves because of the communal nature of suite living . I loved living here as a sophomore, but the quality has gradually gone downhill. By the time I graduated a senior, I could only give it a lukewarm recommendation. All in all, a nice apartment with good location but there are probably better options now. read more