<p>Is it just random? Or do they have us fill out a survey? Or, pretty much, how do roommates get assigned?</p>
<p>u either specifically choose your roommate but i think both people have to choose each other</p>
<p>OR </p>
<p>you fill out some survey about sleeping habits, cleanliness, partying etc and they match ppl on it...and by they i mean some computer probably does it.</p>
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you fill out some survey about sleeping habits, cleanliness, partying etc and they match ppl on it...and by they i mean some computer probably does it.
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</p>
<p>It's pretty much random. The survey literally has 3 questions.</p>
<p>Other schools have detailed surveys and people who go through great lengths to come up with good pairings.</p>
<p>so do you guys recommend choosing your roommate or just going random?</p>
<p>I recommend a single.</p>
<p>Do you know someone already who you know would be a good roommate? If so, you leave less to chance. You'll meet plenty of other people, so it's not as if you'll only talk to your roommate. But keep in mind that a good friend is not necessarily a good roommate, and a good roommate can be someone you're not particularly friends with.</p>
<p>C02 doesn't know what he's talking about.</p>
<p>I actually wrote the old algorithm for matching people based on survey results. The survey had several dozen questions, mostly relevant stuff about sleep habits, cleanliness, tolerance, and views on other things, some of which are controversial.</p>
<p>Starting with the class of 2008 I believe it's now done by hand, with the computer as a guide. It is most definitely not "random". And every year there's some meathead guy who puts "please just don't put me with some fag", and, yup, gets a gay roommate. Not a coincidence. Some very high percentage of freshman roommate pairings are interracial, too. Again, not a coincidence. Depends year-to-year on who in the housing assignments office is actually doing the work.</p>
<p>den, would you mind updating the relevant wikicu page?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wikicu.com/First_year_housing%5B/url%5D">http://www.wikicu.com/First_year_housing</a></p>
<p>also, I guess that means someone in housing must hate a young friend of mine who are in miserable roommate situations...</p>
<p>yes, well, nobody's perfect :)</p>
<p>as for WikiCU, feel free to copy my analysis from the "Housing" thread, which i think is either in this board or the 2011 one. there's a lot of crap I could say but I'm not sure how much is helpful to people - remember, I did game-theory studies on the housing lottery and presented it to an applied math seminar. I'm kinda geeky on this subject =)</p>
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And every year there's some meathead guy who puts "please just don't put me with some fag", and, yup, gets a gay roommate. Not a coincidence.
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<p>That made me laugh incredibly hard. </p>
<p>A friend of mine got in two years ago and like him as I may he's really homophobic (not hate, but actual fear of even hugging another guy). I think he put something similar on his survey and got a gay roommate. Eventually, they got along fine but his first few emails were always titled like "He's watching me sleep" and "My underwear's missing". I thought it was just old lady karma making him her ***** until now. </p>
<p>Teehee, Columbia's awesome.</p>
<p>OK, I just figured out who Denzera is! :D</p>
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[quote]
C02 doesn't know what he's talking about.</p>
<p>I actually wrote the old algorithm for matching people based on survey results. The survey had several dozen questions, mostly relevant stuff about sleep habits, cleanliness, tolerance, and views on other things, some of which are controversial.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>These are generic questions that elicit unhelpful information and are skewed to allow people to influence what they want in a roommate rather than to tell Columbia about themselves. For example, nothing keeps a slob from saying he's a neat person rather than a messy person so that he doesn't get stuck with another slob.</p>
<p>On the other hand, people wouldn't lie about such things. If you're a slob and you fake it to make it look like you're OCD, and you get another OCD roommate, once he discovers you're a slob there's going to be nuclear war in your double. Constant fights about messiness. Turf battles. Anyone smart enough to get into columbia and smart enough to consider gaming the system even before they're a part of it, will probably consider such things.</p>
<p>At least, that's the assumption inherent in the system. For the most part, I think columbia students are considerate enough not to try and screw over the potential person who's going to be their roommate for a year. It doesn't help anyone, it's a lose-lose. No system's perfect and every year there are dozens of transfer requests but it does a fairly good job.</p>
<p>undisclosed, that's a GREAT story. And yes, I knew of several instances like that. The students kind of guess that this goes on, too. Someone on my freshman floor remarked in like october, "hey, has anyone noticed how basically all of our carman doubles are, like (dramatic pause)... interracial?". I still remember the look on his face. Finding out later that year that it wasn't a coincidence at all was kinda funny.</p>
<p>Den, I think you give too much credit to the mind of 18 year olds. My Carman double's other room actually had nuclear warfare. A total slob of monumental proportions, we're talking olympic calibre slob here, checked off "clean" so he wouldn't end up with another slob, and that maybe the clean could would clean up after him in frustration (he told me as much). Things got really bad, because on top of the slovenliness, he always left his key and kept pounding on the door until someone opened it. On top of that we had a useless RA. I felt bad for the clean kid because he was really quiet and passive and got walked all over.</p>
<p>To his credit though, the slob was in fact an academic genius. :-p</p>
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Den, I think you give too much credit to the mind of 18 year olds. My Carman double's other room actually had nuclear warfare. A total slob of monumental proportions, we're talking olympic calibre slob here, checked off "clean" so he wouldn't end up with another slob, and that maybe the clean could would clean up after him in frustration (he told me as much). Things got really bad, because on top of the slovenliness, he always left his key and kept pounding on the door until someone opened it.
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<p>This anecdote happens all the time.</p>