The administration might piss you off quite a few times in the next few years (just wait until they install machine-gun bunkers in the dorm lobbies and hire the actress from According to Jim to speak at your graduation), but at least they try to be helpful from time to time. As you’ve hopefully seen, they send out a packing list to incoming freshmen each year. We’ve surveyed current NU students to see how necessary each item on that list really is, but a few we didn’t even bother asking about. There’s not much wiggle-room here. You need these things:

• Twin XL sheets: Thanks to the brilliance of marketing, “extra-long” means “extra-skinny,” so any twin-size fitted sheet is just gonna get all bunchy and annoy you.
• Toiletries: For your sake, your dorm’s sake and humanity’s sake, bring a toothbrush. Use it.
• Laundry bag and detergent: You need the bag unless you want to get all Hansel-and-Gretel every time you wash your clothes by leaving a trail of loose socks as you carry your linens down the dorm stairs. Oh, and here’s a hint: If you don’t use detergent, your clothes just get wet. And dry again. Do you see where the “become clean” part is missing?
• Laundry money: The machine you use to put cash onto your Wildcard will often malfunction. So, to be safe, just bring a big bag of quarters. It’ll be good for washing your pants and for bludgeoning that person who steals your pants out of the wash.
• Raincoat or umbrella: Strange but true: Getting into Northwestern doesn’t make you water-resistant. Unless you’re the Bubble Boy. In which case you have far greater problems on your withered, unloved hands.
• Power strip electrical adapter: Until you move your entire life for the first time on your own, you never realize how many power-sucking items you use every day. Alarm clocks, phone chargers, printers, lamps, hair straighteners, iPod docks, felines… you’re gonna need more outlets than housing provides.
• Photo ID: You know, for boarding airplanes, checking in at school, having an identity. Preferably not fake, unless Wildcat Welcome start providing Jager when you pick up your Wildcard.

So, yeah, the administration isn’t actually lying about you needing the things above. They’re also not lying about certain items being terrible ideas to bring:

• Pets: Seriously, bringing a dog would be the meanest thing ever. And fish are overrated — they’re not actually going to stave off loneliness, and you’ll live in constant fear of the “NU police state” flushing them down the toilet. One person gets a pass on this rule: The Fish Whisperer.
• Explosives, martial arts equipment and weapons: We know chainsaws were all the rage for making friends in high school, but for college, you’re going to have to find another way. If you need your pyrotechnic fix, there’s a chemistry professor on campus who gives fiery demonstrations a few times a year. As for weapons: Join the fencing team or find a dojo. People are liable to freak out if you’ve got a katana in your room.
• Hanging blankets and fishnets: Even if they weren’t a fire hazard, were you seriously considering hanging fishnets in your room? You can catch some pretty strange things at NU, but go for the standard virus, not a large-mouth bass. Remember, the secret to college chic is looking like you don’t care. And fishnets always mean you’re trying too hard.
• Water beds: When you come home dizzyingly drunk, the only good thing that comes out of lying down on a water bed is that you won’t have to use Ipecac that night. Translation: Vomit City! Anyway, crazy things happen on college mattresses, but puncturing a hole and creating a water slide shouldn’t be one of them.
• Halogen lamps: Will burn you.
• AC unit: Chicago, BTW, is cold. Leave your window half an inch open, lie down in a makeshift coffin (the box from your illegally large fridge should do the trick) and wait for hypothermia to work its magic.

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