So I’m considering rooming with my high school best friend if we end up at the same college. I’ve heard that people who have roomed with their best friend either never bothered to meet new people or found out that they couldn’t live with each other and stopped being friends after 1 year of rooming together. I’ve also heard people say that they shared a dorm with their best friends and remained as close as they were in high school.
The sort of things that I would imagine made things difficult for others probably wouldn’t be a problem for us though. We both sleep very late, we know each others eating habits, and we both know about our general cleanliness preferences.
I’d like to hear some success/failure stories from anyone who actually did room with their best friend when they started college so I can decide what to do. Thanks.
I roomed with my best friend from high school my freshman year. It was actually pretty great; we already knew everything about each other and knew our habits and knew when to talk to each other and when to leave the other alone. I would say our relationship changed slightly; we were still best friends, but now in a more adult way maybe. I’m not sure how to describe it. We aren’t rooming together this year and it has been difficult to continue our close friendship but we’re working on it.
The only negative claim I found to be true about rooming with my best friend was that it was difficult to go out and meet new people at first. I felt comfortable just staying in with her the first few weeks, and by the time I did feel ready to branch out, most people had already made pretty solid friend groups. So that’s definitely something to be careful of.
Before my kids went to college, I would have said it was a bad thing. But both of my kids ended up with truly lousy frosh roommates (both of whom didn’t make it past freshman year). I think it can be fine if you think you are compatible. I would discuss that (1) you plan to meet a lot of new people and make more friends when you get to school, and you hope your roommate does the same, and (2) committing to rooming together next year doesn’t necessarily mean you two will room together all four years – plan to discuss it after winter break freshman year to figure out soph year plans.
I’d consider how good the matching process is at the school you’re attending before assuming that you can do better. Some schools invest a lot in getting this right (and generally succeed.) Others, not so much!! It can be very difficult if you grow in different ways or if one of you starts developing a new circle of friends and the other feels left out. (In all fairness, this can happen with a frosh roommate who is a good fit as well.) But I also agree with @intparent that if the match isn’t good (which by definition is worse than rooming with your best friend), it can really make your first year miserable. A possible halfway house, if your school permits it, would be for both of you to apply to live in a certain area of campus or a certain dorm so that you’d be near each other but not in the same room. That’d give you the space to grow but the comfort of being near each other.
I think that in addition to talking about how you live, you should be very open with each other about your expectations. Will you be comfortable going to different parties? What if one of you got into a relationship and the other didn’t? What if one of you decided to go Greek and the other didn’t or one of you ended up successful in the rush and the other didn’t? The suggestion to commit to discussing sophomore year after winter break is an excellent one. If you don’t room together, you’ll still be friends. You don’t want jeopardize that by having very different expectations of each other in college. As with so much in life, communication is key!
I roomed with my best friend and it’s actually been really nice. We actually haven’t hung out together that much, as we ended up splitting off into different and new friend groups, but it’s very nice not to have the awkward strangers-roommate interactions. It also makes setting rules and living together much easier because we already know each other and have an inherent idea of each others’ boundaries, not to mention that we’re similar people. We really haven’t encountered any of the normal roommate disputes (eg coming in late and being really loud, having PDA with a significant other in the room, cleanliness, etc). It just takes away a lot of stress.
I would say make sure you don’t hang out with your best friend all the time- but it’s totally okay if you guys end up making the same new friends (I know another pair who had that experience)! However, don’t set an expectation that you’ll always hang out forever and if you both start hanging out with different people or doing different activities, don’t feel sad or annoyed at your roommate. It’s a natural thing considering that college offers so many more different options than high school.
But I guess it also depends on your college- I go to the state flagship and it’s somewhat common for high school friends to room together or hang out together since many people come from the same high school. I guess my overall advice is don’t shun your high school friends, but at the same time don’t grow too attached.
It depends on your lifestyle. Someone you know well is better than a person you don’t know at all, but it depends on the lifestyle. If you have vastly different lifestyles (partying, studying, cleanliness, etc) things aren’t going to be great and it could break the friendship, if they’re similar though or you don’t care, it should be fine.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. College is about branching out, growing, and experiencing new perspectives, etc., so there’s something to be said for learning to live with someone new. Also, if you don’t room with your best friend, but instead room in totally different dorms, you’ll have the chance of at least doubling your circle of friends. She’ll have her friends from her dorm and I’m sure you’ll be welcome there, and you’ll have friends from your dorm. If you go with different roommates and still end up hanging out together a lot, and decide you indeed wish you were roommates, you can probably arrange to share a room later on.
Re: the roommate matching process: At first, on paper, my daughter was upset because everything seemed opposoite (staying up late/messy/neat kind of issues) but she turned out to be a great roommate.