How efficient is JMU at selecting a roommate suitable for you?

<p>I'm going to be attending in the fall and have decided that I would like to room with someone new. However, I don't know how to go about doing it. I know that JMU has a survey that you can fill out, and they use that to select a compatible roommate for you, but how successful is it? Has anyone tried it?
I was thinking about trying to find a roommate on my own through College</a> Roommate Finder | URoomSurf, but I don't know if I should. I would like to get to know my future roommate over the summer before we move in together, but the entire process of selecting someone from the site stresses me out!</p>

<p>So basically, should I try to find my own roommate or should I let JMU select one for me?</p>

<p>I would let JMU do it. Living with someone is never easy, but if you have a falling out after choosing your own roommate, you might feel worse than if you had had one randomly selected for you.</p>

<p>room with a friend jmu does a horrible job of matching people up</p>

<p>My daughter is a senior, but during her freshman year, JMU put her with a girl who was her polar opposite. I am all for meeting new people and expanding your horizons, but this was pretty extreme. They managed to co-exist that year, but have had no further relationship since freshman ended.</p>

<p>My second daughter joined a facebook group for the college to which she was accepted, and chatted with many of the girls. She and her current roommate got to know each other through facebook chat and then decided to room together. They are becoming good friends at school.</p>

<p>While I would advise to not go “random”, I also think that rooming with a friend from high school can be bad. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>my daughter went random this year and is having a great time w her roommate. it may be that she is in a learning community - many kids w some similar interests.</p>

<p>I went random and it worked out great for me. We are still friends today and my suite mate is still my best friend today (12 years later). I was also in a learning community so you could argue that that we already had similar interests to begin with, which is probably true to a certain extent. However, the people in our learning community tried to match up roommates who had different experiences and backgrounds so it’s not like my roomie and I were clones of each other. I’ve heard stories about friends who decided to room together and discovered that they didn’t really like living with each other. I think it’s good to meet new people so I vote for random. If you end up with the roommate from h*ll you can always switch. Be adventurous! Get a random roommate :)</p>