Residents of the three Quad Houses are called Quadlings (after the Quadlings of the Oz books); they tend to be extremely loyal to their Houses and to each other as an outgrowth of their shared relative separation from the main campus.
All nine other Houses (called River Houses for their proximity to the Charles River), all freshman dorms, and almost all undergraduate classrooms and department offices are located in the main part of campus surrounding Harvard Square, which is located about half a mile from the Quad, and which is often called the River by Harvard students. Although not all the houses are equidistant from Harvard Yard, shuttles run to the Quad and the more distant river houses to transport students to class.
Freshmen, who have no control over which upperclass Houses they will be randomly assigned to, often fear being assigned to the Quad (also known as being "quadded"). However, many find a sense of community in the Quad and come to love it.
The benefits of Quad life include fervent spirit and Quad community; better housing arrangements than the River, with larger modern rooms and more common spaces; and the suburban and residential atmosphere of the Quad neighborhood as an area distinct from the academic parts of the Harvard campus. The drawbacks are also often exaggerated, as the Quad is no farther from the Science Center than Mather House or Dunster House, and shuttlebuses run to the Yard throughout the day and to the entire campus at night.
Read more about this topic: Quadrangle (Harvard)