<p>My D and her friend plan to be roommates, which I thought was a great idea (not one that I had thought of - they came up with it themselves). It would eliminate the possibility of having a roommate you don't get along with or are incompatible with, although there is no guarantee they would remain friends after living together, but both are very easy-going. My older D, a recent college grad, thinks it's the worst idea ever. She thinks her sister won't meet other people if she has a roommate she knows. I disagree. I know that part of the experience of going to college is to meet new people, which I am sure my D will, but is this as terrible an idea as my other D thinks?</p>
<p>From experience I say not a great idea. Sorry!</p>
<p>Don’t be sorry! Can you shed some light on why it’s not a good idea?</p>
<p>I think if they are outgoing they will meet new people together. The problem I foresee is that sometimes good friends that are together in a living arraingment end up finding flaws in each other and it puts a strain on the relationship. I would suggest they live near each other ie. same suite same floor etc.</p>
<p>oh no, im scared, my friend and i requested each other for roommates, but we are not super close. we are both vegetarians and we are both have our ideal careers as our goals[she wants to do environmental engineering, and i want to be a neurosurgeon] any tips? i’m outgoing enough, but not super outgoing…i just figured having a roommate i knew would make the transition easier…</p>
<p>i’m doing a summer program also, so that may help me meet more people…I can always change roommates spohomore year if it doesnt work out, right?</p>
<p>sapphire: I’d say great idea about rooming with someone you’re friends with but not best friends. That way, you’ll know who you’re living with but won’t feel bad if you guys decide to go your separate ways friends-wise throughout the semester. Keep with your friend as your roommate! Seems like you’re doing plenty to find new friends already and you haven’t even left for school. You’ll be just fine.</p>
<p>OP: I’d say tread lightly. I know many groups of friends who no longer speak to each other because they hated being roommates. I know many groups of roommates who are now best friends after living together. I know many groups of best friends who grew even closer as a result of living together. I think any of those can happen to your daughter. I think the suggestion for them to live near each other but not together is a particularly good one (unless they’ve already committed) because then they can each meet new people but still have the support of their best friend nearby. That’s the route my best friend and I went last year (our freshman year) and it worked delightfully. Now that she and I have a few more years of friendship (and friendship in college, which is definitely different from friendships in high school) we’ve decided to live together next year. I think it’s going to be fabulous, and I’m really looking forward to living with her.</p>
<p>One thing I’ve noticed with friends living together is that it really depends on the relationship going into it. Have they been incredibly close for a long time? If that’s the case, then it’s probably unlikely that they would let some situation spiral out of control and cause their friendship to fall apart. They’ve probably encountered rough spots in the past and have gotten through them just fine, so there’s no reason to think college would be any different. Are they more like, just friends from the same group? These are the friendships that I’ve seen disintegrate the quickest. It seems that people who come from the same friend group and lack the foundation that true best friends have fall apart quickly because they don’t deal with big time problems together that often. Are they hardly friends and really just acquaintances? If that’s the case, then I’d say that’s fine too, because if something comes up between them it would probably be easy for them to part ways with no hard feelings.</p>
<p>I’d say the bottom line is that if the girls are willing to make a commitment to working through their issues and make an effort to remain friends, then they should be able too easily enough. It might be worthwhile to have her look through some of these boards, or talk to her friends already in college, about the situation too. It’s possible that she’d really be better off with someone else and is just completely unaware since this whole “college thing” is completely new to her. </p>
<p>Think it through and realize that there’s a huge possibility that this really IS the best thing for your daughter. While some friendships fall apart, others thrive! I know my first year was so much easier with my best friend’s support nearby, even though we didn’t live together. The transition from high school to college is definitely challenging, and having someone you know and trust to go through it with is so relieving. Yes, there are definitely merits to branching out and making new friends, but having a few comfortable and familiar faces just makes those first few weeks all the better.</p>
<p>She’s lucky! Enjoy it!
Kristin</p>
<p>I recall at multiple orientations being told that rooming with a HS friend isn’t the best idea and that it can be a good way to ruin a friendship. There’s a big difference between getting along with a friend in HS and getting along with them when you need to live with them in a tiny space every day. There can also sometimes be problems when one or the other starts to make new friends. It can be even more of an issue if tripled and there’s an odd person out with the other two being friends. College is also a good time to make a fresh start and break out of any old HS mold one might have been in but that doesn’t mean they need to disavow old friends - just be very open to new ones.</p>
<p>However, there are exceptions to everything and it goes both ways where HS friends room together in college and it works out well and one rooms with a stranger and it’s a major issue, especially if the college does a poor job (or no attempt) at matching at least a few personality attributes. But, if one gets stuck with a lousy roommate they’d probably be quicker to cut the cord since there’s really no history at stake and seek out replacements whereas if it’s going sour with a HS friend, it could end up rougher.</p>
<p>There’s no single definitive answer on this because it comes down to the individuals.</p>
<p>My D is living with a person she never met before this term as a transfer spring admit. Iti’s OK but she & her HS friends are excited about living together – three have been friends since HS + 1 girl that is a suitemate of one of the girls. I think & hope it will work out well for them because they have thought it through and are committed to making it work.</p>
<p>S is lived with a boy he never met before as a freshman. They remain friends but chose not to live together after that year because their habits were too different (S is nightowl & roommate was earlybird). 2nd year, I’m not quite sure what happened but don’t think close friends were made among the room mates. This year & next, he’s rooming with a boy who went to HS with him, tho they weren’t “close.” They get along very well.</p>
<p>Roomming with anyone, especially in college, is a learning experience. Hopefully things will work out, especially if everyone understands that they will have new friends & experiences & aren’t hurt when interests diverge. Freshman year, D did not live with any of these girls & they didn’t room together, so all were able to meet new friends separately, which is a good thing.</p>
<p>Having a great living experience is partly being open to it and catching things before they become problems. Part of it is mutual respect & allowing space (not smothering one another).</p>
<p>I had a good friend form high school as my roommate…it didn’t work out. She was a ittle wild after getting out from her restrictive parents. I felt like I had to be her mother and keep her from doing stupid things ( such as borrowing my car to go to the library,but heading to a beerfest at a frat house )</p>
<p>I have heard a lot of stories about friends rooming together and it has never been a good thing …even a very easy going , mellow girl .
Not a good idea, if they want to remain friends, IMO</p>
<p>When I was in college, two high school friends roomed together on my floor. It worked for the first trimester, but when one of them branched out a bit to try to have more friends and one of them was clingier and needier, it went bad FAST. (and when one had a boyfriend and the other didn’t? It was not a good situation at all). I would recommend to my daughters that they not room with a HS friend initially- they can see them all the time, dine with them etc… but that they both should meet new people and have new experiences. Isn’t that part of the college experience? And if they decide they really do want to live together, they can do that sophomore year, right?</p>
<p>I used to think that rooming with a high school friend would be a big mistake- too limiting. But after reading some of the horrible roommate stories on CC, I’ve changed my mind. There are some pretty strange and disturbed people out there. I think I’d go with a known quantity. But the girls should agree ahead of time to some ground rules- like not being joined at the hip, not getting their feelings hurt if one girl wants to branch out. They should also talk about how next year they will likely want to change their living arrangements. Best of luck!</p>
<p>on another note , my daughter and her roommate this year chose each other based on meeting on a facebook group for their school. They seemed to have some things in common, including living in the same state…it wasn’t horrible , but they really didn’t have as much in common as they thought they would. One never knows how well it will or will not work out.
When my older daughter went to her school with a very close friend they decided NOT to live together…all parents agreed too. They have made a lot of new friends, but still remained close friends and have really benefitted by heaving each other close by when they needed each other.</p>
<p>S’s freshman roommate and his best friend both attended the same school but decided not to room together. They did however ask to be placed in the same building. This seemed to work out very well as they both met a lot of other kids on their floors but still had each other close by. They are all graduating next month and my S is still very good friends with both.</p>
<p>Both of my kids (boys) go to big state u’s aand live with friends from high school. It has never been a prob.<br>
S1 (sr.) advised S2(fr) that it much better to go with a known quantity than chance being miserable with a stranger. Apparantly S1 observed a quantity of strange guys in his freshman dorm,lol.</p>
<p>I had always heard it was a bad idea but it has worked out well for both of mine.</p>
<p>The roommate assigned to me by my college was someone I had absolutely nothing in common with. That said we were both decent enough and made a real effort to get along, thus it turned out to be a good experience for both of us. We parted ways at the ended of the semester by mutual agreement and we each went to room with others we had become friends with. We still saw each other on campus and were always friendly.
I won’t go into detail here, but the two roommate “horror stories” that I remember from college both involved girls who roomed with girls they knew from high school.
D is the only person from her H.S. attending her college, so she will be not be rooming with a H.S. friend or acquaintance.</p>
<p>Bad idea…live separately but make time to see each other and do it away from the dorm rooms!</p>
<p>I roomed with my HS best friend our first year of college and it turned out much different than what I expected. I think that is what you need to address: Expectations.</p>
<p>I was neat and she was messy. She was easy-going and didn’t study much and I was uptight and tried to study. She made friends easier (imagine that??) and had them over often, so to study I had to find other accommodations. A breaking point was when she, unknown to me, “lent” one of my term papers to a hall-mate. She had no ethical problem with doing it and I did.</p>
<p>Neither of us was completely wrong or right - we just had different expectations about our college experience. She transferred colleges, became a top student and is now an elementary school principal doing very well. We live in nearby communities and have a nice friendship.</p>
<p>Everyone changes/matures somewhat rapidly in college and preconceived notions about the person with whom you live can sometimes be unsettling. If you go into it okay with this, you will probably do fine. If you expect your relationship to stay the same or similar to high school, you will be disappointed, at the very least. </p>
<p>I was not an easy roommate and learned a lot in college about getting along with others from my roommates. I learned what I could and could not endure in a living arrangement and how to lighten up a little. I think I can, at least partially, credit this part of the college experience with my successful 25-years-in-June marriage.</p>
<p>Ultimately, you and your friend need to be aware of and weigh the pros and cons of rooming together. Use some of the online materials for testing compatibility to begin addressing expectations and have some ground rules and boundaries from the start. Good luck and have a great time!</p>
<p>My best friend and I went to college together. We didn’t want to risk rooming together, but we wanted to stay close, so we asked to be in the same dorm (college). We wound up living next door to one another freshman and senior years. It worked spectacularly well. We were both reasonably outgoing and wanting to meet people, so there really wasn’t any clinginess issues. Our friendship turned out to be very magnetic to others – a big part of it was, I think, that so many people were trying to reinvent themselves their first year of college that you quickly learned that you couldn’t really trust how people presented themselves. Having a old friend nearby a lot of the time was sort of like insurance against b.s. – neither of us could get away with it, because the other would call him on it – and the fact that we felt completely comfortable with each other helped others feel comfortable with us.</p>
<p>The relationship survived a lot of stresses – girlfriends, romantic rivalries, my brief affair with his sister (big mistake! and I knew it), separate good friends, diverging interests. We finally risked being actual roommates for the summer after we graduated, before we went our separate ways forever – in a big house with both of our sisters and several other friends. That was great. I still miss him.</p>
<p>In other anecdotal evidence: Two best friends in my son’s high school class, and a third not-as-close friend, roomed together in a quad with one completely unconnected person when they went to college. Everyone was predicting disaster, but the room stayed together for two whole years with not so awful strain. It’s breaking up for next year, but everyone still likes one another.</p>
<p>My daughter wound up living with someone from her 4th grade class for two years, and maybe again next year, post-graduation. He had never been a close friend of hers before, although he was a close friend of a close friend, so she had always known him pretty well. The two of them worked extremely well as a housing combination, despite some vast differences in personality, interests, lifestyle (bohemian hipster vs. biology nerd). The important thing was their agreement on what their living space would be like, and their openness to learning some from the other and his/her friends.</p>
<p>OP- IMHO, I think the temperaments and personalities of each of the girls are to be considered. If they are low risk types, then having a roommate you are comfortable with will lower anxieties about living with a stranger. If one of the girls has a more dominate personality than the other, will the other girl be lost in the former’s shadow? Is this a mutual decision to live together, or is one girl pressuring the other?
Guys seem to be more successful living with high school buds because dudes know that sometimes a guy has to be a lone wolf and they can give each other space without having to explain. Guys let a lot of things slide whereas girls take EVERYTHING too personal-IMHO.</p>
<p>I roomed with my best friend from HS for freshman and sophomore years, until we transferred to different schools. Forty years later, and although we have been in different cities for 30 years, she is still my “best friend.” That said, perhaps my daughter is having a better life experience for not living with a friend (or even having a HS friend at her college.) It can work or not work either way. Like everything else in life, no guaranties.</p>