I am always curious about this ‘best side of the room’ - are they REALLY all that different? We got to my youngest D’s dorm hours before her roommate - should we have just sat there waiting for them to pick sides? Ridiculous really
Depends highly on the room, furniture and layout. Some rooms are mirror images, so who cares? Other rooms have layouts or furniture that means one set is different (better? worse?) than the other.
@milee30 We have been 5 for 5 kids rooms were identical (sides) or darned close to it
Yeah, in identical, mirror image rooms it does seem odd that it would matter who gets which side.
In a room with a centered door one side is immediately visible when the door is open. This side is bright when the door is open at night while the other side remains fairly dark. The roommate who is regularly out late should have the door opening side of the room.
In some rooms that is the case. In the room my D had freshman year, there was a sink area right at the entrance, so neither bed area was visible unless the door was wide open. They were also at the end of the hall so there was almost no one passing by.
Even so, my D, who arrived a day early, did only minimal unpacking and would have been willing to swap if the roommate cared.
Apparently roommate didn’t care, as D kept her original side. They are still roommates as juniors so it all worked out well.
Older dorms tend to have more irregular rooms—and by older I mean like, pre-1960’s. Both of my kids’ colleges had newish dorms where everything was pretty uniform. At the New England LAC I attended that was often not the case. My freshman room had bunk beds so there the whole top/bottom preference.
My younger son was in a room one year that I am sure the architect must have thought was a single. The ceiling on the side my son’s bed was on was so low he couldn’t sit up. There was only one closet. It was a terrible room and the roommate was awful that year too.
In my kid’s room, the outlets are unbalanced (2 electrical on one side, 4 on the other, LAN/cable/telephone lines only on the 4-electrical side), but the sides of the room are mirrored otherwise. She moved in early, and had initially selected the 2-outlet side of the room; she switched once we realized the outlet situation because her roommate was presumed to be international. We knew for certain that her bed would be lofted - no idea whether roomie was renting a loft setup - ensuring space for fridge/microwave/etc, which would take up extra plugs.
As it turned out, early move in was an admin snafu, wherein they’re in the international living community but both US students. She got messages about being required to move in early and so did; roomie didn’t see the emails and so didn’t. (Kid didn’t want to be a clueless American asking “where are you from” in their limited exchanges, figuring that would come out as they got to know each other - so they missed that piece of information about each other, lol. They’re both considered “international roommates”). She would be willing to switch, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue. Though the dorms don’t allow extension cords, making surge protectors with 10’ cords a campus best-seller.