<p>One of DD's biggest fears is that she will be incompatible with her roommate. She doesn't expect a new best friend, but she does want to be comfortable with the situation. She's identified a couple of potential roommates. I think they've discussed some basic issues like drinking and degree of acceptable messiness. They seem compatible in those areas. </p>
<p>What else would you advice your own child to ask or think about?</p>
<p>Night owl vs early bird?</p>
<p>Study habits, partying habits. Definitely night time vs early bird.</p>
<p>expectations about guests…will either roommate expect frequent overnight visitors?</p>
<p>does the potential roommate smoke? I wouldn’t want to live with a smoker even if she only smoked outside the room</p>
<p>also, once they decide to be roommates they should probably coordinate what stuff they’re bringing, as there’s no need (or room!) for duplicates on speakers, TV, fridge, whatever luxuries they’re planning to bring.</p>
<p>Music, TV, computer? Noise tolerance can vary greatly. Some people have no problem inflicting their bad taste in media on others. . .and they don’t like earbuds/headphones.</p>
<p>Overnight visitors policy is a biggie.</p>
<p>Bathroom habits–girls, especially–if in a suite with own bathroom. A lot of kids had their own bathrooms at home and are used to taking FOREVER to get ready and leaving their junk all over the place. . .</p>
<p>“Do you hit your snooze button 10 times every morning?” (Bad memories of one of my college roomies!)</p>
<p>You’ve gotten good suggestions. I think even finding out how much sleep each roomie needs would be helpful. I have some friends who are both night owls AND early birds, from needing only 3-4 hours sleep.</p>
<p>If this is for a move off-campus, try to look at the potential roommate’s living space now. That will give some indication of how it will look later.</p>
<p>I think she may be setting her standards too high. My D found her roommate on facebook. They facebook chatted and agreed they had a fair number of things in common and that they sounded - to each other - to be basically sane people. 
They agreed that living with each other seemed “safer” than letting the college randomly choose a roommate for them. (Their college does not try to “match” roommates.) I think that a good standard. </p>
<p>It has worked all right for them. They do some things together and they like each other all right, no major issues. First semester, my D’s first morning classes were never before 10 and roomie had 8 am classes 4 or 5 days a week, so there was a definite when to go to bed/when to wake up conflict, but that could not have been easily predicted - was mostly a function of the sections of classes that the roomie was in.</p>