<p>Can we choose roommates?</p>
<p>If you have a specific person in mind you can request a roommate... if you dont have a specific person in mind it is random.</p>
<p>in the packet doesnt it say that its random?</p>
<p>well the housing is random... as in you dont get to chose your dorm. The roommate selection is also random (with mind to preferences) UNLESS you have a specific person you want to room with.</p>
<p>Duke honors requests... if you know someone, meet someone on facebook, whatever, and you request to live together, you will.
If you don't, it's a random selection with respect to your roommate questionairre/pref sheet answers.</p>
<p>Be wary of the picking-your-own-roommate thing. I did it last summer with a girl I met on facebook, and it worked out GREAT for us (we're each other's best friends at school and living together again this year), but that's because when we were getting to know each other, we asked each other the right questions. Instead of discussing movies/music/TV favorites, we talked about what our worst habits were, our flaws, our pet peeves, and that sort of thing. Unfortunately, I know quite a few people who picked their own roommates based on relatively superficial reasons (i.e. liking the same music) and thought they'd get along great, but now absolutely hate each other. If you don't meet someone that you think is a really great fit, don't stress out about trying to find one. Duke does a frighteningly amazing job at matching up random roommates - I find it hard to believe that they ONLY base it on the 5 pref sheet answers because of some "random-matched" roommate pairs I saw that were just beyond perfect for each other. Everyone I know has a feeling they may go back and look at the apps for hints about people's personalities, because they are just REALLY, REALLY GOOD at matching roommates up.</p>
<p>Eh- it honestly depends tremendously on the situation.
Every roommate selection based on facebook that I've seen is absolutely successful, they're best friends and living together in the future. All the Duke '09s that I knew beforehand decided to do that, and I was very skeptical of it and let them know, but it was so successful.</p>
<p>I'll be honest, Duke isn't trying to find you your best friend when they pick roommates. It's nice if it happens in the process, but they're trying to find you someone who you can live with really, really well... And I think, for the most part, they succeed in that. There's a huge difference between being able to live well with someone and being a perfect pair for each other. </p>
<p>Duke does AMAZING pairings sometimes-- two of my best friends from a different dorm are like 'friend soulmates' and after they return from abroad, are living together for their third year. But I've seen that this is the exception, even if I didn't realize that until seeing how people adapt to life on West. (hell, that's the story of my defunct, failed block from sophomore year)</p>
<p>Bluestar, from reading the Chronicle, it seems that blocking is more popular nowadays. Is there any reason for that? Why was your block a "failed" one?</p>