I'm not condoning you breaking the school's rules, but, my freshman yr at OSU, I had a cool RA who turned a blind eye to pets under the agreement that if caught, he knew nothing about it. That Said..an aquarium is a crappy home for a rat, rats need to be kept in pairs, and, in my opinion, girls don't smell as much as boys (I have both). Hairless, from what I hear, don't live as long as furred rats...but, I have 2 patchwork hairless who are 2 1/4 who have, thus far, outlived all of my furred rats with the exception of Raji, my heart rat who lived to be 3.

I got two boys at the beginning of the summer. My school's dorms don't allow them either (the contract specifically states nothing but "non-carnivorous fish"). But I'm living in the dorms this summer. Some schools may crack down on it hard. Others are probably pretty lax (my school's rules about pets are apparently about as strict as those about alcohol  ). A few weeks ago, a guy came by to fix my doorknob and caught me with the rats out. Once I'd opened the door for him, I couldn't go hide the rats, but when 'he saw them, he said it was all cool and he'd stumbled on to someone else with one recently. 

If you have a roommate, make sure you wait until you're settled in and set up at your room and ask your roommate about it. My roommate probably wouldn't have had a problem, but I decided to wait until this summer because I'm getting an apartment next year and will have more space.

Rats are great college pets, in my opinion! Just have your desk set up so they can crawl around it while you're studying. My boys have been keeping me company this summer and I probably would have gone crazy alone without them.

not recommended at all

first, a 10g tank, even w/ a tank topper is too small for two rats (and you SHOULD get more than one, unless you adopt a rat w/ known issues w/ other rats). ventilations is poor w/ tanks and they stink up quicker

DO NOT break the school rules! yeah, it sounds unfair, and yeah lots of people get away w/ it, but many, many don't. if you get caught, you pets will be seized and sent to a shelter, where they may be put to sleep. not only will you probably get kicked out the dorms (and lose you housing deposit) but so may your roommate(s), regardless if he or they agreed to the pet  (and since you may be randomly assigned a roommate, this person may or may not like rats and may very likely snitch). I've heard of students being kicked out of school for bringing in pets.

it will be hard to clean the cage if you have to constantly sneak around. sneaking in supplies will be harder. and rats aren't completely silent (water bottles are noisy, and so is their chewing on lab blocks)

security is an issue. anyone may be able to just walk into your room and harm your pets, regardless if there's a lock on the door or not (roomies do leave doors open)

what will happen to the pets during Xmas and thanksgiving breaks? what about spring break? can't leave them there, and if you bring them home, you have to sneak the entire setup out of your room and sneak it back in (it sounds like your parents don't want rats in the house at all, so where will they go?)

and the first year of college is BUSY AND STRESSFUL! many kids drop out before November. you'll also be meeting new people and maybe even partying. you CAN'T just go off to someone else's place for the weekend and neglect your rats

I've been in your shoes. I'm 22 and when I started school, i had a dog and a hamster and was considering getting rats. i went to a school w/ an animal science major and pets were still prohibited on dorms (though you could bring your class beagle to some lectures). schools vary, and some people here have rats in school (i think mandycoot is one, tho i don't know what school she goes to), but if it's in the rule book, I'm going to be a partypooper and say don't do it, esp if you don't know the school's tolerance towards rule breaking. either get off campus housing or wait until you do to get rats

Honestly, if you go ahead and do it and sneak in rats... you will be constantly paranoid, and it sucks.

Pets (including rats) are not allowed in my building.  This never occurred to me, until a little while after I got the rats a bit news bulletin came out about it (someone else must have gotten caught).

Anyway, sneaking in with food and supplies in the middle of the night SUCKS. And I'm sure in a dorm people talk!  Once you get rats you will get so unbelievably attached to them, and if you had to give them up it would literally break your heart. 

And as someone else said rats take a TON of time and attention anyway.  Way more than you would ever think a rodent could possibly need. LOL  I'm going back to school in the fall and I know that I am going to feel like I am neglecting my babies...

So I would vote, stick with what is allowed.   And get a fish tank.

It's not something to go into lightly and yes there are a lot of issues with it (I've been in similar circumstances) I wouldn't do it until you are absolutly sure and you should definitely wait until you've been at school for a little while and get used to things, you may find you don't even want to still get rats.  IF you do decide to get rats the best suggestion I can give you is that Amazon.com has some supplies etc and if you order from there it won't be second guessed.

If you college has a must live on campus for two years, in the third year move off campus into an apt. building with some friends, and then get rats.
I had friends with rats on campus, and the RA/maintenance guys were cool about it, but there were RA's/maintenance guys who were not cool about it.  Only reason why the RA was cool about it was because he was the boyfriend to one of the friends.

Once I moved off campus our apt became the "oh (bleep), they are doing an inspection, can we drop of x, x, and y?".
I would then "babysit" the menagerie until their owners came.  I didn't really approve of the animals on the campus, but at the same time I didn't want to see them put down at the shelter.  I was also guilty of that crime for 3 months.

The month I was moving off campus I broke my ankle into about a million pieces, the apt. I had lined up was now unlivable (3rd story, 8 miles away, standard trans).  My now husband owned a ferret and was moving down, well, we ended up moving into an oncampus apt, where you can live as couples - very cool might I add.  Every security guard and maintenance guy we dealt with knew about them since there were these double locked doors 1 step up where you had to keep your key in and turn, try doing that on crutches!  So on days my husband worked they would charter my butt around and let me into my apt.  But they also all knew that we were moving into an apt off campus at the end of the summer - my husband being there meant that they didn't have to help me as much.

I do know the local shelter ended up with a LOT of "college pets".  The last year I was there they started collecting all the feral cats and spaying/neutering -those all started out as dorm pets that kids just released when caught because they knew they would be put down at the shelter.

I waited until I lived in an apartment in college... I really don't recommend bringing them into a dorm where pets are not allowed. You've waited this long... a couple more years is not going to kill you.

You need to adopt a PAIR. With as crazy as colege life will be, if you decide to not take everyone's advice then your rat is going to need company beause you won't be there 24/7. Unless a rescue will adopt to you a rat aggressive male or female. But knowing that you would be living ina dorm I doubt they would adopt to you for the safety of the animal.

I have majorly violated the no pets in the dorms rule. I would definitely wait until your sophomore year, though, so you know how things work better. I waited until my sophomore year, when I had a sweet, suite dorm with a separate living room, bedroom, and private bathroom. This really helped because I could have a large cage, but move it between rooms when people came over. I also covered it with a sheet, so it just looked like ghetto, college furniture, when I knew official people might come over. My college has carts to move in and out, so I just used those with, yet again, a sheet over the cage to move the cage around. I also called my rommate as soon as I got her info, and actually didn't get my rats until I knew she was okay with it.

I did get caught, though. I couldn't sleep with the rats in my bedroom, because of their wheel, so I always moved them out to the living room. Well, maintenance came over without calling me, which they're required to, one day. They actually left as soon as the saw my rats didn't do any maintenance (my boyfriend woke up and saw them). There was also no maintenance to be done to my knowledge. Well, they told my RA, and he actually forgot about it for a couple weeks, but then he was talking to me one day, and he suddenly remembered. He told me to bring them home next time I left, and I just never did.

That being said, I had several options you might not have that made it more realistic for me to keep them, without worrying about them ever going to a shelter: My college officially states they can't take your pets; they can only kick you out of the dorms, and you have 3 months notice. I loved my rats so intensely since I first brought them home, that I would've moved out and found an apartment, which I've done within a week before, so it would definitely be practical at 3 months. My parents would've also taken them in an emergency situation (but I don't think I would've lived through the separation). I also had very obvious, uh, mental health issues that several RAs and the hall manager were aware of. The hall manager bent some rules for me because of these issues, and I have no doubt I could've brought in official documentation saying how much the rats had improved my mental health, so he would've let it slide (which is not lie, they have).

So, I vote you wait until your sophomore year, and then carefully consider all your options and their possible repercussions.

That's why I so recommend research into the school's rules. My statement applies to Ohio State University only.

I realize this is totally selfish, but I was incredibly lonely, and I felt an immediate need for company, so that might what others feel, too. Especially as an incoming freshman, I think it might ease fears of loneliness and adjustment issues. (I still think it's not the greatest idea as a freshman, though.)

Just be patient and wait. Get to college and settle in. You have the rest of your life to be a rat owner. there are so many changes both mental and physical when you start college. It would be unfair to you and the rat at this stage in your life.

OTOH, how in the world did you bring a 100lb doberkid into the dorms Kim? I have a big, beautiful red/rust dobergirl and she isnt even remotely a good sneak..lol she is just short of a 100lbs.