On the housing portal I’m seeing a form for putting housing type preferences (traditional, suite, apartment) and general preferences like smoking/t-shirt size, but not a place to put whether you prefer a single/double/triple/quad. Has anyone done that yet, and how did you do it?
I’m not sure that you can actually request single/double/triple/quad at this point. I believe that singles are first-come, first-serve by lottery to upperclass students. When I lived in Leonardtown (many moons ago), I got “in” first to an apartment in one of the double rooms, and then when a senior graduated out of one of the single bedrooms, I had priority for that over someone that was not already placed in Leonardtown, if that makes sense…? Of course, things may be different as they didn’t have differentiated housing fees back then…and my son was in South Campus Commons after freshman year so he always had a single bedroom in a 4 bedroom apartment there (and he was in a double in Chestertown as a freshman),.
If you have a medical necessity for a single, you should contact resident life about that and I am sure that they will assist and do their best to accommodate that if you have a physician certification kind of thing. They absolutely will accommodate medical need for A/C (such as asthma).
So when you were a freshman, you got randomly assigned? I’m an incoming freshman and I want to preference a double b/c i don’t want to be in a triple or quad.
If you requested/signed up for housing early, you will likely get the double, no worries. And yes, in my day, it was ALL random as an incoming freshman. No internet, so no way to connect to others, lol (I’m an old alum!). Also had to stand in line with punch cards to sign up for classes, haha.
So, my son’s experience is probably more relevant to you. He was in scholars and actually met a LOT of really great people during orientation. Unfortunately, the group of the people that he clicked with was an odd number, and since they were IS (he was OOS), they already knew each other and had already agreed to room with each other. So, he decided to just go random and let the cards fall as they may. He remained friends with the group he met at orientation throughout his 4 years!
If you meet someone at orientation that you click with, you can both shoot an email to ResLife to request each other. As long as the request is mutual (and in writing from each of you), ResLife does their best to accommodate the request.
If you want to do the Facebook roommate thing to choose your roommate, you can, but my daughter didn’t do so well with that experience at another school. People tend to curate themselves online and things were not as expected (room was also MUCH smaller, so it exacerbated a bad situation). So, my recommendation is just do random because it’s easier to not have expectations of behavior. I
this was really helpful, thanks!
No problem. If you want to get a sense of what some rooms look like, there are lots of videos on youtube - use key words “dorm tour umd”