Cabin Requests - New Camper Blog Series

New camper families – welcome back! It’s another Tuesday, which means another week of our New Camper Blog series!

With so many schools being cancelled and many of us figuring out how to fill the time the next few weeks, what better time to start thinking about your camp forms? Go ahead and knock those out so that you’re ready for the summer! Today we are looking at one form in particular…

Let’s talk about cabin requests. At Greystone, girls live in a cabin with other campers from their same grade. Every once in a while we will have a cabin that spans two grades, but the majority of our camper cabins are set up to house one grade group.

Cabins are made up of 8 – 12 campers and either one or two counselors. When we are putting together cabin groups, it is like a big puzzle! We look at every camp grade individually (sometimes this includes 100 girls!) and we then look at each camper individually within that grade. We want to find the best possible cabin group for each camper – that is our highest priority when we work on cabin placement. We want each camper to love her cabin and love her counselor! As we are working on cabin placement, here are some things to know:

We try our best to honor all double cabin requests (you request a camper and that camper also requests you).
We allow up to two requests from each family. You can request a hometown friend and a camp friend, a hometown friend and your Penpal, or even 2 camp friends. For our new families, it will most likely be a hometown friend and a Penpal, as you haven’t made camp friends…yet!
Make sure to request your Penpal if you’d like to be with her. You will receive the name of your Penpal very soon, and if you’d like to be in a cabin with your Penpal, let us know on your Cabin Request form.
Many new camp families don’t have a request. This is normal! If you’re new to Greystone and don’t know anyone attending, no need to worry. Many families are in this same situation. We will find your daughter a great cabin group!
We don’t put lots of girls from the same hometown in one cabin. We want girls to meet new friends and for camp to be a new experience. Because of this, we won’t put a huge group from the same place in a cabin.
We look at cabin groups from last year and try to switch things up. We want every summer to be a new year, so we won’t put an entire cabin group back together again. This is great for our new campers – every year, the group is new, so being brand new to camp isn’t that big of a deal – everyone is experiencing something new on the first day!
We try to place your daughter in the perfect group for her. You fill out quite a bit of information before you come to camp, and we take in all of it when considering each camper for a cabin. We want each group to be a good mix of personalities, but also a place where every camper will feel like she has a friend.
If you don’t want to be with someone who is requesting you, let them know! It is so much better to talk to a family ahead of time than disappointing everyone on Opening Day. We don’t keep cabin requests confidential, and we will be honest with all groups involved if there is a cabin request question. Avoid this disappointment by being honest ahead of time!
Have twins? Make sure to list the twin as a cabin request on your Cabin Request form, if you want for your girls to be together. We don’t automatically assume you want them together – you need to let us know!
You’ll find out your cabin assignment on Opening Day…it is one of the most exciting parts of camp! When you arrive, our Program Staff will greet you at your car and tell you your cabin assignment. It’s fun!
You may not know anyone, but don’t worry. Our counselors do a great job of helping the group as they get to know each other from the very first day. In no time, our new campers feel like seasoned campers and will have some great camp friends!

We also have a great parent video explaining the Cabin Placement process, so make sure to check it out (and make sure to watch our other parent videos too!):