Dormsplash.com named Georgia State's Dorms the best in the Country, but also added University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Garner Hall to their worst dorms list. Our college blogger, Kristy Shaulis, lives at Urbana-Champaign and gives us the scoop on this low-rated dorm hall.

What exactly constitutes a bad dorm? It’s hard to say for sure. In the case of Garner Hall, it might just be in need of a facelift.

The dorm, one of six popular residence halls on campus informally known as “The Six-Pack,” was built in 1958. Some residents claim that the main reason the dorm was ranked the worst is due to its age.

“It’s old, but I don’t think it’s that bad,” said Kaitlin Harnden, a sophomore at the University of Illinois. “Everything is just very worn down, which I guess is the main thing.”

Garner Hall is one of the oldest residence halls on campus, but the University of Illinois realizes that. In fact, the university has plans to demolish the hall in 2012 as part of an effort to update and rebuild these dorms that are quite behind the times. If this is the last year the hall (as it currently stands) will be around, it almost seems obvious it wouldn’t be the newest and greatest thing around.

But what about the rest of the current living conditions at Garner?

Harnden added that she hasn’t experienced any bug issues in the dorms and that, overall, it’s a fairly clean residence hall.

“I don’t see any difference between Garner and [the rest of the dorms on campus],” Harnden, who lived in another campus dorm last year, said.

Another important thing to consider is the ranking system behind the “Dormy Awards” and DormSplash.com. The site is based entirely off of reviews, so the rankings constantly change.

Although the ranking that earned Garner Hall the top spot on the “Worst 14 Dorms in the Country” list was a 2.2 out of 5 stars, the residence hall has since climbed up quite a bit to a 3.3 out of 5. In fact, since the ratings came out, other university residence halls have fallen to ranks below Garner. The number of reviews a dorm has is clearly a large determining factor in the ratings.

So while DormSplash.com does provide a strong review system, don’t base your entire decision on where to live off of the site. If just one angry ex-resident gets hold of the site, the ratings could get thrown off substantially.  

What do you think? Have you lived in a dorm worthy of the title "worst dorm in the nation?" Share your ideas with us!

— By Kristy Shaulis, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign