Hi everyone!
I was recently accepted to USC, and I will be attending, but I just have a few questions. So I know people in California are very tolerant, but I am gay, and I’m slightly worried about having a roommate—especially if they’re uncomfortable with me. I don’t particularly want to apply for gender neutral housing just because I’d really like to live suite style (ideally a single, so I won’t have to deal with a roommate at all 
). Along with that, what is the suite style housing like? I tend to be a bit more introverted and I’m a little bit anti-Greek, so one of my friends said the suite style living is a bit quieter? Also, do you have any tips just in general?
I don’t have first hand knowledge about being gay and tolerance at USC, but I’m pretty sure its students are as accepting as people in California in general. My son lived in a suite with 7 other students in the Parkside Arts and Humanities building his freshman year. All of his suite mates spent their time gaming both together and on their own instead of going to parties. They were all on the introverted side and none were interested in Greek life or really even going to football games. Their suite was on the quiet side. At least as of three years ago, the New North dorms were known as the ones where a lot of Greek students and partiers liked to live and where there was more noise. From our experience, USC does a great job of matching up roommates and suite mates as long as you are as detailed as possible on the housing application. You can also try to find other suite mates using the USC housing system or the Facebook group, but if you do find others that you would like to room with or share a suite with, then make sure that you all put the exact same buildings and type of housing in the same order in addition to doing whatever they say to “bring in” who you want to room with. Hope this helps!
@takacatboy For suites, you should apply to Parkside A&H as mentioned above (not the international one) and Fluor. You are unlikely to get a single, those would have been gobbled up by upper classmen that were assigned well ahead of freshman. I cannot imagine in this day and age, and particularly at USC, you will find any one having an issue with having a gay room mate. In the event you do however, moving is a fairly simple process there, and it would be like anyone else dealing with incompatibility of a room mate. The gender neutral floor is at Birkrant which is a great location and option, if you don’t mind the traditional dorm set up, but you said you prefer suite. The Rainbow floor is an option - that is located in Century Apartments - the only thing is while as close to campus as it can be, it is just outside of it, across Jefferson. I would think it may be a bit harder to meet people there, but the trade off is you aren’t worried about a room mate being accepting. Personally, I would rather my freshman be in a dorm on campus, just from the social aspect.
Suite style housing is a bit quieter than traditional dorm - as @CalBearAlum1 said, USC does an amazing job matching room mates; beyond the profile, they tend to take majors into consideration as well. I think you will end up with a great group of suite mates, but if in the unusual circumstance you don’t, you will be able to change.
I actually think they should add the option “Tolerant” to the housing profile with the slide bar strongly agree to disagree…that kind of matching could be helpful to any LGBTQ person concerned with housing.