What TikTok-worthy designer dorms look like at Pa. schools from Philly to State College

Months before Brenna Callen arrived on campus at St. Joseph’s University, she started designing her dorm room.

By May, the 18-year-old Lansdale native said she and her roommate, Ava Gnias, of Phoenixville, had settled on a theme — “modern coquette,” with light blue and white colors.

They shopped online for items that have become TikTok-worthy-dorm staples — plush bedding, upholstered headboards, matching ottomans, a pastel minifridge, and a chic “fridge bridge” that allows for aesthetically pleasing storage.

Callen said all the accoutrements ended up costing between $700 and $800, a relatively low sum compared to what some students, particularly at Southern schools, are now spending on their dorms. For Callen, it’s worth it, she said, for more than superficial reasons.

“Every time we get out of class, we’re like ‘We want to go back to our room.’ It’s so comfortable,” Callen said. “We really just made it our own.”

On college campuses nationwide, many dorm rooms now look like they belong in interior-design magazines. Or, more fittingly, on viral TikTok or Instagram pages.

Locally, dozens of students at Millersville University, Villanova University, Temple University, Rutgers University, and beyond have taken to TikTok in recent weeks to show off their new digs.

The curated-dorm trend has taken off since 2020, according to a CNBC report, when Tamara Wingerter and Stephanie Knight started a Facebook group dubbed Dorm Rooms of Mississippi and Beyond. Wingerter, who now has her own company, told the network that she’s designed rooms costing anywhere from $500 to $20,000.

These elaborately decorated dorms typically belong to female students, though local students and parents said they’ve also seen boys getting in on the trend.

Some critics say this increased fancification of dorm rooms can deepen socioeconomic divides on college campuses. To help narrow the gap, nonprofits like the North Carolina-based Vogue Room Foundation have stepped in, designing dorm rooms for free for first-generation students of color.

Sometimes, the students take the lead on the design. Other times, parents hire interior designers or scour social media. They often turn to “momfluencers” who make money recommending dorm products, or Facebook groups such as Dorm Room Mamas, which has nearly 397,000 members seeking design advice and sharing photos of their handiwork.

“We did it! Thank you so much for sharing your ideas. With brave wings she flies,” one mother of a West Chester University freshman posted on the Facebook group last week, alongside photos of her daughter and her roommate, wearing matching “Roomie” pj’s, in a posh blue and white dorm.

For some parents, the dorm-design process represents one last chance to bond with their children before they leave the nest.

That was the case for Carrie Swayze Beckwith, 50, of Medford, N.J., who also took to the Dorm Room Mamas Facebook page last week to share pictures of her daughter Jordyn’s room at Penn State.

“Love how it turned out! Thank you to this group for all the tips, tricks and ideas,” Swayze Beckwith wrote. “I felt perfectly prepared and we had everything we needed!”

Swayze Beckwith said the approach to college move-in is much different now than it was when she was an undergrad in the 1990s.

“I was sent with a duffel of clothes, a couple of posters I taped on the wall, and a bed-in-a-bag,” she recalled. “Outwardly, it feels a little over the top [nowadays] with everything being ornate and color-coordinated, almost like it’s curated for Instagram or Pinterest.”

But, “it’s definitely also about wanting our kids to feel truly comfortable in their first home away from home,” she added. “It’s almost like a symbolic transfer of one nest to another.”

All in, she said, she spent about $2,000 on everything from decor to toiletries and snacks.

Asked why crafting the perfect dorm room meant so much to her, Swayze Beckwith got choked up: “As a parent, it’s like our last act of supervision we get … the last little thing we can have one little bit of control over.”

Jordyn, a Penn State cheerleader, said she started thinking about her dream dorm room in June. She found inspiration on Pinterest and Penn State-centric wall decor on Etsy, but she also had a desire to make the space her own.

“I wanted it to be super colorful. I didn’t want to leave any of the wall space empty,” Beckwith said. “I wanted it to be a comfortable-feeling dorm, too, and welcoming.”

Her mom helped make that vision a reality. The pair said it was a bonding experience.

Jordyn’s favorite part, she said: Her plush bed, complete with a $150 mattress topper, a white headboard, blue and pink throw pillows, and a reading pillow.

During her first two weeks on campus, Jordyn said she loved having such a homey space to return to after long days of class and practice.

“My transition was easy,” she said. “It doesn’t really feel super different from being at home.”

Kaydence Smith arrived on Penn State’s campus having thought about her dorm room design for almost a year.

From the start, she knew she wanted to create a cozy paradise with one unifying theme: the color pink. She had to screen her roommate accordingly.

When the two were chatting on social media, before deciding to live together, Smith said: “The first question I had to ask was ‘You’re all right with a lot of pink, right?’ I was like ‘I’m going with a lot of pink.’”

Smith took inspiration from some of her older friends from the Raleigh, N.C., area, some of whom went all out on decorating their own dorms. In comparison to them, and even to other students at Penn State, Smith said, she and her roommate’s space isn’t that ornate.

“I know it’s not as much as some of my friends have done, but it’s also not super cheap,” said Smith, noting she took advantage of summer sales, such as Amazon Prime Day. She estimates she probably spent about $1,000 in all.