http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/474715-air-conditioning-dorms.html
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In this day and age I can't imagine why a dorm would not have central heat and air. I have read about some of the summer programs being offered at Yale, Harvard and Boston U. I got the impression that the dorms are not air conditioned does anyone know for sure? Is this due to the age of the schools or do they just put the temporary boarders in the worst of the worst?

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AC is not standard, epecially in older buildings, and even more so in the northern climes.

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Some dorms have AC and some don't. It is very expensive to retrofit AC into old dorms that were built without it. That is probably why some of the older dorms don't have AC. In our experience, AC is only added when the dorm is having a major renovation (the kind where a lot of the infrastructure is being redone). BU student village has AC and so do some of the smaller dorms (the former HoJos). The larger dorms do not. In most cases, colleges will use the larger dorms and have only those open (with the dining facilities) rather than have smaller dorms (which need staffing) open all over campus. Student Village is apartment and would not be appropriate housing for some summer programs (I'm thinking about high school students).

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^ Echo twinmom. Just bring a good fan. Better yet, a floor fan + a small desk fan. I went to a school in SoCal that had no air conditioning in most dorms, and that was pretty normal. A few tough days, but not normally unbearable, even during the summer.

Bear in mind that older buildings were generally designed to stay fairly comfortable even in extreme temps. They're not always perfect, but they seem to do a good job.