<p>Do the majority of students select a roomate and request or leave it to chance with random selection?</p>
<p>My first child requested. My second child (UD 2017) has no contacts and thinks random is the way to go....</p>
<p>I am not aware that UD publishes any specific statistics on this. Historically It would be my perspective that the majority of OOS students went random but with the emergence if all the internet social network sites (i.e. Facebook, etc.) I believe more and more students are hooking up with roommates thru these means. For random students UD does attempt to match people up with similar interests but this is still somewhat of a crap-shoot. I am not sure if this is still the case but in the past UD has tended to match roommates together with similar majors (I think the pros to this outweigh the cons-just my perspective). IMHO most random students find that they get along reasonably well (or at least are able to tolerate) their random roommate. Probably only a relatively small minority have major problems with their roommate (and would need to address this with the Housing Office). However I suspect the numbers are probably not significantly different for students who pre-select their roomamte. Unfortunately UD does have some students who decide to leave during or after one semester which opens up some spaces for students to move to. Best of luck to your child.</p>
<p>The only thing I would worry about going random would be housing. Last year there was a decent amount of kids who ended up in triples. Housing basically told us they are kids who went “random” they do not like to put kids in triples along with two who have requested room mates because they don’t know the specifics of how the two selected each other. They could be lifelong best friends, cousins or simply people who met on campus. They don’t like to purposefully create a dynamic that would make one person feel like a 3rd wheel. My d was terrified of a triple… She found a girl on facebook and roomed with her. First semester went great… 2nd semester her room mate partied way too much for my D’s liking, (not sure the room mate will be able to return with grade averages etc…) All in all it worked out ok and what happened could have happened with random as well since the room mate really changed her ways mid year as was nothing that would have shown up on a summer questionaire anyway. </p>
<p>D tells me housing is very full this year for upper classmen, they held more rooms for freshmen even with the new building being done and several sophomores she knows is scheduled for overflow housing next year even though deposits were in on time. I mention this because it seems like this years freshman class will be the biggest yet and a good chance for “some triples”</p>
<p>Great point about the triples… yeesh!</p>