<p>I’ve seen references on here to “D” rooms, and on the room selection site the suite bedrooms seem to be labelled A, B, C and D. However, on the housing site floorplans, they’re labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4. Is there a correlation (i.e., bedroom 1 is bedroom A, or something like that)? I think I’ve read that the D rooms are preferable - is that the case across all the suite dorms? Is there any material difference between the rooms? Anyone know how many kids go with random roommates vs. trying to find one on facebook or Roommate Finder? Or which tends to be more successful? D seems to be inclined to go random, or maybe it’s just that inertia is a powerful force . . . .</p>
<p>Our son has a D room (aka “4” on some of the websites). It’s a good layout for him. In Riverside the D and C rooms actually look out over the lawn and pool area or the street area. It seems that the A and B rooms (at least for his roommates) look at the sides of the building more than anything else. </p>
<p>Regarding the random selection, he and two others decided to room together when they all interviewed for CBHP. Whoever had first selection would pull up the other two…and it turned out our son had first selection. The one other student that was already in the room was also an honors student. That was challenging. He turned out to be a slob and had a lot of “partying” majors in the room. In most cases, UA does a fabulous job of quickly getting a handle on this. Usually their RA goes through a room agreement process where everyone agrees on quiet times or cleanliness issues…so that’s a help too.</p>
<p>I would think that this is part of the luck of the draw and for us is just a good learning experience. The three students had to make a decision on how they were going to handle this young man’s actions. All part of growing up. But I do tell you this…as a “mom” and someone who has worked with young people for decades, I thought I had seen it all. In fact in less than 24 hours of move in there was 6 inches of trash on this kid’s floor and the entire dorm stunk. Words cannot describe the area - it look liked someone overturned a dumpster. More priceless was the look on three boys faces when they saw it. I am happy to say that they all dealt with it constructively among the four of them, and the young man moved to his frat house over Christmas. </p>
<p>I understand that the roommate finder option, or maybe it was the discussion among the kids, allows them to discuss whether they study with loud music, ear phones, quietly, etc. and to discuss their level of “neatness”. </p>
<p>Does your daughter know anyone else attending or has she facebooked anyone?</p>
<p>No, she doesn’t really know anyone who is going to Alabama, and she has not joined the Facebook group. Her high school sends a few kids to Bama each year, but I think she’s the first one who will be in the honors program - the kids who go from her school tend to be very low stats kids and mostly boys. I think she’d be better off finding at least one like-minded roommate, but there’s no movement on that front. She put her deposits down in October but hasn’t made her absolute final decision on attending yet; it could be she’s reluctant to look for roommates until she’s 110% sure she’s going to UA.</p>
<p>^ a few on here have ended up with their kids rooming together… worth asking as there’s a good chance there is a match to be made on this board.</p>
<p>DS had a similar but much more volatile and dangerous situation as crimsonmomtobe’s son last semester with a random roommate. It was eventually resolved at the end of the semester but not without a lot of stress and collateral damage which he is having to recover from this semester. I have hesitated to post publicly about this because the fact that it happened at UA is immaterial - there are ethically bankrupt losers everywhere.</p>
<p>Thankfully he is doing fine. Not to scare anyone, this stuff happens at colleges everywhere, but don’t be complacent in thinking that just because someone is in Honors they are a good person, so how bad can it be? It’s a total crapshoot as far as sharing moral or academic values, much less basic cleanliness. I know there are some great RAs, his however, will not be returning to the position after her role in choosing to overlook the obvious violations.</p>
<p>Add to that being from far out of state, you won’t be able to get as much face to face feedback to assess the level of an issue.
Long story short, IMHO finding someone, anyone, who seems like a good match is better than going random.</p>
<p>Now the BIG disclaimer, as soon as the director of housing was made aware of the situation he went above and beyond to rectify things, involved different Deans, the Provost, UA Police, professors etc. on my son’s behalf. We got a call on Christmas Day with the resolution, can’t imagine any other school doing that.
Roll Tide!</p>
<p>AL34, I’m sorry your son had those issues, but it’s good to hear that UA dealt with it quickly and effectively once it was brought to their attention. I have a friend whose daughter attends a small, CTCL school where one would think a very bad roommate situation would be dealt with promptly. But it took months, and significant parental involvement, just to get a not particularly satisfactory resolution, so it’s good to hear that a large state school can get it done right.</p>
<p>^ you will definitely find that this is the smallest large school anywhere… much more personal attention to details/issues than at our 4500+ high school.</p>
<p>The roommate finder didn’t help here. Our daughter found out the hard way that people are not always honest with these profiles and provide “window dressing” on their FB pages. Lets just say we were faced with a really bad situation early on. Due to the seriousness of the situation, the UA moved our daughter swiftly. Although it was a really rough and stressful event, the staff could not have been more cooperative. Being from OOS, that made all the difference. I agree with AL34, “this is the smallest large school anywhere”.</p>
<p>Thank you both for sharing your stories. I have been encouraging my son to reach out to more people on the roommate finder as well as on the fb page, but he is dragging his feet. Now i have stories yo tell him to help. </p>
<p>Sent from my DROID RAZR using CC</p>
<p>Crimsonmom2be makes a good point.</p>
<p>I know that one mom was concerned about her child’s room in Riverside overlooking the pool…</p>
<p>Only a very few suites in Riverside West are near the pool…and really only the ones on the first floor…</p>
<p>But even more so…only suites C and D face the courtyard pool area (and again, the pool area is small…it’s a small pool there. Suites A and B are on the side and don’t have windows facing the inner courtyard area.</p>
<p>Those of you who have been on CC for awhile might remember my freshman year roommate saga. All I am going to say is that I was glad that we could handle the problems internally without getting the RAs involved, though m2ck did her part in helping resolve the situation. :)</p>
<p>While many students (and parents) plan for all the roommates be best friends, in reality having the roommates be like ships passing in the night can be a great situation. After all, one of the CC mantras is “love thy kid who sits on the couch.”</p>
<p>Apart from getting off the waitlist to become an RA or finding an inexpensive off campus apartment/house with a May-May lease, it’s looks like I’ll be living in the same room I’ve had for the past 2 years, possibly with some of the same roommates as this year. In retrospect, the choices I seemingly made on a whim have turned out to be a situation where the grass is very green on my side. For the record, I have checked to make sure that the grass isn’t AstroTurf. :)</p>
<p>i hope you get to be an RA seatide. you may be a little quirky, but i think you would be a great help to any kid who asked for some help.</p>
<p>DD found her roommate on Facebook. It really could not have gone better! Yes…you live in close quarters (the girls lived in Tut) and they both pledged different sororities but it was a nice year. I like to think she was the “norm” not the “exception”. When looking for a roommate I would encourage your kids to be honest and up front about what they are “looking for”. In return I would have them do a lot of sleuthing…I think Sea_tide is correct in saying that you cannot count on the fact that this person will become your new best friend. Yes you can be compatible but ultimately your child needs to go out there and make their own set of friends. I think that the best thing is to let your child navigate this process them selves. You won’t be there to live with the person that is chosen…they have to. As parents we all want our children to be happy and safe but sometimes life’s little lessons are good growing experiences. Sure if the situation becomes dangerous a parent needs to step in. I would encourage you, as difficult as it is,to let your children pick their room and their roommate…most of the time it will work out fine.
Finally one piece of advice…DD and her roommate attended Bama bound together. I got to meet the parents…that was VERY helpful when it came to buying room items ect. and DD and roommate got to bond a little before they arrived for recruitment. they did not stay in the same room for Bama Bound but did a lot together and got to know each other a little better…best idea ever!</p>
<p>I agree. It is important to let the student complete the profile, search for a roommate, and encourage them to be diligent in finding all the information they can. Unfortunately, that isn’t always enough. While it is great if they become friends, it is only necessary that they learn to get along. If your child finds the situation to be of a threatening or dangerous nature, I would encourage you both to take immediate action. There are lots of great potential roommates out there. She happened to find one who wasn’t. All is well now, thankfully.</p>
<p>Bamagirls - with the benefit of hindsight, is there anything your daughter might have seen in her former roommate’s Roommate Finder profile/facebook page, etc. that could have predicted the bad outcome? Are there questions you would advise asking, or additional information our kids should seek out, based on your D’s experience? It wouldn’t surprise me if a student might describe the way they’d want to be (or want a roommate to be), such as saying they’re neater and tidier than they really are, but I hadn’t given much thought to a student blatantly lying in the profile about really fundamental things. I guess I’m naive (not to mention I went to college at a time when the school just matched you up with a random roommate and have no experience with this). I’m encouraging my D to look for like-minded roommates rather than just taking luck of the draw, but maybe I should be providing some warnings and advice, too.</p>
<p>As SEA_tide stated being “ships passing in the night” is not a bad thing. students (who are suite mates) will have various majors and schedules and may not even be in the dorm sleeping at the same time -much less socializing. This is (I repeat) not a bad thing, especially when you have little in common. It doesn’t make for a bad room mate situation… only a “not best friends” situation and that is okay. Sometimes after students get to know each other, they realize that they have different values and different groups of friends.</p>
<p>I always caution each student to lock their own bedroom doors. This is not only for privacy but also for safety, (this is important for both female and male students). This is just good commonsense, however in a suite where more students might be visiting and a roommate may leave suite door unlocked (even by accident) this is a good practice and precaution.</p>
<p>Yes, college isn’t high school with the same start and stop times and lunches. Roomies often end up with wildly different schedules that they barely see each other.</p>
<p>I remember a post from a couple of years ago when a mom was concerned that the dinette table wasn’t big enough for all the suite mates to eat a meal together. A sweet thought, but not likely going to happen even on a weekend. If anything, some roomies may arrange to meet at a dining hall for a meal, but most times everyone’s wake times and meal times will differ.</p>
<p>Just putting a plug in for the C room. My son has been and will be in D, but his suitemate in C from last year and this year did something really awesome with their room. They put together the desk, “printer” desk, and another piece of furniture (perhaps the dresser?), to make a big desk. So much space! Like a big work table. They lofted their bed to put tubs underneath and have a plastic dresser where the dorm dresser used to be. This big desk looks out over the Riverside lawn. This may be able to be done in most rooms, as his suitemate from last year moved next door and did the same arrangement with his C room in his new suite.</p>
<p>Montegut, was your son not able to do it in room D? </p>
<p>My D doesn’t know what to do about roommates. She has sent some messages to people but mostly hasn’t heard back from them. She isn’t very interested in the Class of 2016 Facebook page. Do you think it is okay for her to just go with the luck of the draw? She has the first day and first time for picking, so I think she has a good chance in getting the room/dorm she wants. I know a number of the girls she’s contacted have said they aren’t 100% committed to UA, so she might be able to find some roomies when more kids start making decisions.</p>
<p>linnylu- I think that there are 2-3 different facebook pages for class of 2016. Some more active than others. There is also a site called ■■■■■■■■…or something like that where you can find roomates as well. I don’t think my son has used it, but I saw the info somewhere about it. </p>
<p>What does she think about the roomate thing? Is she OK with luck of the draw, or does she want to try to find someone personally?</p>
<p>For those of you who are having trouble finding a roommate - I would recommend (especially if you are a parent) connecting with other parents on this board via PM - especially if it seems like your kids might be compatible. </p>
<p>It will be difficult to really know how the kids get along until they get together, but you can learn a lot about them from reading their posts (and maybe their parents’ posts) here on CC. (I don’t mean this in a bad way…it could be info such as major, outside interests, housing preference, rushing or not…etc.) </p>
<p>If nothing else, you know that the parents on this board are relatively involved in their kids lives - which is a big positive. </p>
<p>My S has one roommate and possibly two more from parent-to-parent connections on CC. I think we’ve been pretty good about leaving the process up to the kids - but a little input from the parents (who are so very wise) has also helped the process along.</p>