I'm a sophomore at a small environmental liberal arts school in a little village in rural New England. Although I'd love to continue taking Irish dance classes, there are no schools in my area... which means I must continue on my own. Thing is, I don't really know where to practice. There's an athletic center, but it's always crowded and busy, even until very late at night. The movement studio is locked when there aren't belly dance, yoga, pilates, or zumba classes going on. My room is large enough, but I don't want to bother my roommate while she's studying.

Does anyone here practice dance while away at school? Have you found a place that suits you?

I am not sure what a movement studio is, but at my school you could reserve the yoga/class room for individual use for free for like an hour or so at a time.

Also...there aren't mirrors in them, but I used to practice dances in the racquetball rooms.

I too would suggest seeing if you can reserve the dance studio. You could at my college (which was also a small New England school lol). Find out who is in charge of the building thats in. At my school it would be the director of the sports complex. Just say you are a dancer and would like some time to practice and ask what times are available.

The racquet ball courts also work and I have danced in them before too. You could also try to find an empty classroom and move the desks, just put them back when you are done. You could also practice in your room when your roommate isn't there. If theres a time she has class and you don't that could work. Though if you aren't on the bottom floor, be conscious of the people underneath you when jumping around and stuff.

My favorite practice place is is the room where the yoga and pilates class meet, but that room gets used so often that lately I've practiced in the racquetball rooms a lot more. They have great floors for soft shoe, although I have to practice my hard shoe dances in dance sneakers because my shoes would leave marks.
Also, is there anyone you can ask about using the movement center? Maybe you could get permission to use it right before or after they're using it for their classes.

My dd is an Irish dancer and a freshman at a smallish NE college. She finds various places to practice; the gym, the dance practice rooms (when not in use by dance clubs), raquet ball courts, the hallways of her dorm. The only restriction she's run across is that there is noplace she can practice in hard shoes so she uses her dance sneakers for that. When we toured each of the 8 NE colleges she applied to, one of her first questions was where can I practice ID? They all had spaces available. Is there any time of day that your roommate is out of the room when you could practice there? Though if your room has a concrete floor I do not recommend practicing there as you could get shin splints. Are you sure there's no ID school you could get to? We live in NE and I swear it's hard to turn around without tripping over an Irish dance school; they're everywhere. Check the websites of schools in your state and contact their TCs. Some of these schools have satellite classes that may not be listed on the school website. Also have you tried posting on your school's newsgroup/message board/facebook page asking if there are any other Irish dancers? NE is full of them and it would be the rare college indeed that didn't have at least a few.