@pcola08 I don’t know if the dorms are 50/50 but I’d imagine it’s close. By my calculations you have a decent shot. Think it depends largely on how many admits with contracts go to other schools.
Keep in mind that not everyone will select Azalea or Magnolia. Taking into account those that decide not to enroll, those that get accepted to honors and go with Landis, and those that lose their place in line by going with a lower ranked roommate . . . your chances are decent to get your first choice.
@DadinOP Yes, the rooms are single gender. And if 55% of the student body is female, then that it stands to reason that around 55% of the spots in every dorm will be for women. It also stands to reason that the lottery numbers were distributed along the same ratios.
You can say that your son is 500 in line if you want, but you then need to reduce the number of available spots in each dorm by 55% in order to get an idea of their chances to get a high-demand dorm. Therefore, if you want Azalea, you have to consider that there are only ~194-195 male spots available. It’s as valid to say that your son needs ~306 males ahead of him to list another dorm as their first choice as it is to say that he needs ~702 total students ahead of him to list another dorm as their first choice (70% acceptance*1641 spots ahead - 442 spots available).
One thing that isn’t clear to me is how roommate matching works when a student doesn’t request a specific person as a roommate. I’m assuming that they use a questionnaire to try and put compatible people together. How do they reconcile priorities in this case?
@shortnuke agreed that you have to account for gender in dividing dorm suites, but are you factoring that there are four males per suite? I don’t know how many male suites are in each dorm but it’s not one contract number per suite, it’s actually four per suite. His first choice isn’t Azalea regardless so I’m confident he’ll get one of his two top choices.
@DadinOP I think this is where the matching algorithms will come into place. Two students could be close in their priority numbers but completely incompatible, and I hope FSU’s roommate matching will account for this to some degree. Also, while most of the dorm spaces are double suites with a shared bath (4 total students, two rooms, 1 bath), there are some singles, triples, units with private baths, etc.
To be honest, there doesn’t seem to be much differentiation between the dorms, so I doubt it’s a big deal if you don’t get the building you want. I have to wonder if some of the older buildings might be better options. When I went to school, there were some really quirky rooms in some of the older dorms that made them very desirable. One dorm was a converted apartment building that had a single room in a spot with access to the roof.
@shortnuke. We could market this, give the anxious parents a probability of what dorm their kids get (for a nominal fee of course). LOL My son wants to be closer to buffet dining…he’s into lifting weights and eats a lot.
I think your idea of having a roommate matching process with questionnaires is great! Could match on a number of attitudes, beliefs, and interests… but I think it’s all randomly assigned for kids that haven’t selected a roommate. Or am I wrong? One of my worries is he’ll end up with incompatible person that will stress him out.
I’d sure like to hear more about the roommate matching process as well. When you search the forum about all I can find is that they ask a couple of short questions - do you like to stay up late, and do you listen to music when you study. If this is it, at least they try to take into account sleep patterns.
I justed called FSU Housing - I guess there is NO roommate matching that is done by FSU. It is 100% random. FSU Housing shared that some kids are meeting up on Facebook and looking for roommates, but the person I talked to said even that has mixed results.
@my2caligirls And then you have to worry what number they are (if you have a good number) as it will change your placement. Ugh. So much to obsess over! Hahaha.
Totally agree - trying to find a roommate on social media that has a decent housing number sounds somewhat painfull to me. I think D18 will take her 313 number and try her luck with Random. If the perfect roommate with a comparable number is reading this feel free to PM me!!
Lol. @my2caligirls. My son has 86, so he’s really lucky. We’re going random because it’s about as predictable as anything else. We’re going for location.
So is the consensus view that Azalea and Magnolia are the best in that order? And after that where does it go from there if you want to try and avoid a triple at all costs. My kid got a number around 2500. Also sorry if this is wrong thread but what do you think about the Living Learning Communities?
This article ranks the dorms pretty accurately, according to my FSU student. https://www.society19.com/ultimate-ranking-freshman-dorms-at-florida-state-university/ Note that they say Wildwood is less desirable due to location but most kids don’t mind the location. Honestly the least desirable choice is Salley, all else is fine. In general it goes Azalea, Magnolia, Dorman, Deviney, Landis, Wildwood, Degraff and so on…
When you get your time slot for picking your room, you will be able to go in and select the actual room itself within the dorm. There is no way to know anything about the roommate other than their name, if spots within the room are already chosen.