<p>For me, if the OP had just asked me the question in the thread title, I would have had the same answer as her grandmother. But her extended post checked off all the right boxes in terms of addressing the reasons why one should not leap to room with a high school friend. It looks like the OP knows herself and her friend pretty well, and they know they can make it work. So I would defer to that. A random roommate can be great, OK, neutral, not great, or awful; a friend will probably by OK as long as you can get along and not pre-empt each other’s life. So there’s a lot less risk.</p>
<p>I did what some here are suggesting – my best friend and I went to the same college, and we never lived in the same room, but in both our freshman and senior years we each were in four-person suites that were next door to one another. That was just about perfect. Each of us wound up being close to the other’s roommates. We spent a lot of time together and gave each other a lot of support, but we were able to get away from one another when we needed to (which happened with some regularity). </p>
<p>It was very unusual at our college for freshmen to have a really close friend nearby, and lots of other people found our friendship and our comfort with one another attractive, so in many important ways it was easier for us to meet people than it would have been if we had been completely separated. (We were also both very social.) The dynamic at Temple is probably a lot different, however, since there are plenty of students who come knowing dozens of people from their high school class. In my kids’ high school classes, over 10% of the class went to Temple, and for some of them it took a while to expand their social boundaries beyond their high school. It doesn’t sound like that’s the kind of people the OP and her friend are.</p>