<p>My son will start college in the Fall and his new coach called last week asking if he wanted to room with a fellow athlete. (My older son did not have a choice; he was expected to room with a teammate.) At first he thought that he would want to live with a teammate as they would have similar schedules, understand the workload, etc. But the incoming class has a Facebook page and the kids are all talking and looking for roommates, and my son wonders if he should instead choose to live with a "regular student". </p>
<p>If your student had a choice, did s/he choose a teammate? Obviously, with the decisions made and deposits sent, I have way too much free time to think!</p>
<p>Good question. My incoming 2015 athlete was lucky to have a boy from his summer team also recruited by and attending his same college. We are thrilled they will be roommates - as you said similar schedules, support, understanding, study halls, hours, etc. Would love to know if anyone ever thought this was a bad idea.</p>
<p>This was definitely a consideration for my daughter and a question she asked at all of the schools she visited. It was actually one of the deciding factors when she was making her decision. She very much wanted to have a teammate for a roommate, especially since her team practices early in the morning. She has friends who are athletes with roommates who are not and the early mornings caused issues. They also had issues with roommates coming in very late and being loud when they had to be up at 5am for practice. Plus, she thinks it is important for team bonding for the freshmen to live together.</p>
<p>My daughter’s school splits the athletes up. But that doesn’t mean my d is ever in her room:) like fishys kid my d just wants to be with her teammates fulltime. She does a lot of their thinking (in a good way) for them so it helps to be with them 24/7</p>
<p>Our S also chose to live with a teammate and has continued to do so after freshman year. As others have said, it worked very well for him to have someone with a similar schedule and requirements for food/sleep/etc.</p>
<p>D wanted an athlete, but one in a different sport. The thought being you would have somebody on a similar schedule with an appreciation for the athletic time commitment, but not somebody that you are already seeing all day, everyday. Plus an opportunity to expand the social sphere beyond the team.</p>
<p>As it turned out, she got a suite with 4 non-athletes with whom she has become great friends.</p>
<p>If there are early morning practices, then I would definitely say yes so that they are on a similar schedule. DS had afternoon practices so schedule was never an issue other than when they left for meets early in the morning. He had a random roommate which I thought was good as far as interacting with non team members, but roommate has since left school. Next year, one of his 3 suitemates will be a team member.</p>
<p>DD’s coach picks the dorm and roommates for the incoming freshman. They are in the dorm with the biggest rooms. Their rooms are scattered among various “houses” within the dorm which allows them to make other non-team friends. Upperclassmen will go for singles or teammates as roommates, then usually rent a house together jr/sr year. Practice schedules and temperments tend to reinforce this pattern.</p>
<p>Class schedules and majors help separate the girls and provide a little breathing room. DD has no teammates in her classes, but 2 are in different sections with the same professor, so they can study together if they want. DD eats with the team at dinner but usually finds other friends to visit with at lunch. </p>
<p>The team becomes a mini “sorority” and the girls do a lot of community service and other things together. Non-team friends are invited to parties, etc., so there are plenty of new faces around to keep things from getting too insular.</p>
<p>My son’s baseball coach gave the incoming freshmen the option of living with a teammate and choosing that teammate. My son did exactly that last summer, and it has worked out well. The rooms are scattered among freshmen housing which allows them to meet people outside of the baseball team. Next year these same baseball freshmen will live off campus together in a house. For large campuses, I think this approach makes alot of sense as it gives them an immediate group of friends to hang with.</p>
<p>My S did not want to live with an athlete. His rationale was that he’d spend 30 hrs a week with his teammates (in the off season and more during season) and wanted to have a broader social base.</p>
<p>For him, it worked out quite well – he has several distinct social groups and seems very comfortable in all. He parties with his teammates, athletes and non-athletes!</p>
<p>Next year he will room with 3 of his suitemates (no athletes) and one other non-athlete.</p>
<p>There were downsides - he needs to be up early for workouts and the typical college clock means that his actual roomate (as opposed to suitemantes) had to deal with his early rising. But, the roomate adjusted and since they will be rooming together next year, it did not seem to be an impediment to building what appears to be a life-long friendship.</p>
<p>No right or wrong answer – just make sure you know the options.</p>
<p>When in the official visit stage, D found she preferred the schools where the coach did not have freshmen room with their teammates. At the other schools it seemed to her like the teams were insular and only ever hung out with each other. D wanted to meet all kinds of people with different interests, and wanted to develop alternate social circles as a safety net, in the event she ever quit the team or was regularly left behind on competition weekends because of injury.</p>
<p>Rooming with a teammate is great when it works out, but having been on a high school team with lots of girl drama, she was well aware how quickly things could sour and then you not only have to see the person for hours at practice, but in your room too. Also, just because the roommate is on the same team, doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily get along well.</p>
<p>Having said all that, though, D plans to room in a suite with 2 other teammates next year as a sophomore. But she now knows these girls enough to be sure they’ll get along, and has made lots of friends from her regular freshman dorm.</p>
<p>My daughter also chooses to room with a teammate. Although the coach was open about the pros and cons of living with a teammate, it seems that most of them do, and those who don’t just didn’t seem to be as much a part of the team’s camaraderie. She will also have early morning practices, and going to school in a city setting <em>I</em> feel better if she and her roommate travel together.</p>
<p>And the late nights of non-athletes are another issue altogether … better to have the same demands, I think.</p>
<p>Of course it can also not work out so we hope for the best. I assumed the coach would assign them, but some of the girls had already decided to apply together (as on the Facebook group referenced above) so my daughter already knows which teammate she will be rooming with, at least as long as the requests are approved.</p>
<p>As a former collegiate athletes (@ Penn State from 02-06) I’m glad to hear it worked out well for some of your son’s and daughters. I however, had a few experiences that I think should be shared. I should note that our coach placed each pair of roommates, and I don’t recall ever being asked (by the coach) if I wanted to room with someone specific.</p>
<p>Freshman year: I got placed with someone who had transferred to Penn State to join the team. He was already 21, and it was pretty much a disaster. Its not so much that we didn’t specifically get alone, but more so because he didn’t last very long on the team. I honestly can’t remember if he completed the season. So all the benefits of living with a teammate went out the window eventually.</p>
<p>Sophomore year: I got paired with an incoming freshman (because most of the freshman from my class had already moved out of the dorms) who was from my high school team. Ironically enough, we were really good friends at the time, but having to live together made that friendship difficult. We had been friends for about 3 years prior to that, and the friendship fizzled out during the year.</p>
<p>Junior & Senior Years: I lived by myself in a studio apartment, mainly due to those two previous experiences.</p>
<p>“Super” Senior Year: I moved into a house with 4 fellow teammates, and 3 of them had been living in the house for two years already. This was by far my best experience living with roommates. We all knew each other at that point and had dealt with previous roommate drama, so we understood how to work out our differences. These guys are some of the best friends I’ve ever had.</p>
<p>I guess the moral of this story is that (although I think the first two situations are rare), don’t expect everything to be perfect at first. As a student-athlete, freshman year is a bit more difficult than it is for most freshman. The added time commitments, the strain practice, and the pressure of competition all add up. While having a roommate that is also and athlete, and more often than not a teammate, is nice in theory…it is what you make of it. The reality is, that if you don’t get along as roommates, unless one of you quits the team, you will have to deal with this person for the next three (or four) years regardless. So its better to try a bit harder to make it work.</p>
<p>Kiddo’s college picked their roommates freshman year. Kiddo’s roommate was an athlete, but in a different sport. Couldn’t have worked out better! Kiddo’s practice schedule is primarily early morning; roommate’s practice schedule is primarily afternoon. This gives each kid plenty of ‘scheduled’ room-to-self time. They enjoyed each other’s company immensely; were not joined at the hip due to schedules; respected and understood each other’s practice dedication needs. And, given this school’s athletic teams provide an intricate social network, it gave them additional social access.</p>
<p>For sophomore year and beyond, the kids can choose their own roommates. Kiddo’s roommate will be an RA, so Kiddo has thrown in with several teammates plus several from another sport for a suite setting. (Much to our chagrin, she didn’t understand the economic benefits of being an RA in time to apply. She just didn’t want to have a private room! Arrrgggh!)</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing your experiences. We’ve been talking this week about the pros and cons of both. I think the poor guy is just sick of making decisions–so many big ones had to be made this year! </p>
<p>He will have morning practice 6 days a week so I think it would be best to room with a teammate or at least another athlete with morning practice. He is ready to meet and mingle with lots of different people. I am sure it will work out whichever he decides.</p>
<p>With morning practice, I think that sounds like a good plan because of the schedule. My sport has afternoon practices, so I didn’t quite have the same issue. That being said - we are given random roommates freshman year, and I’m actually really glad I didn’t room with another soccer player. As a freshman, I feel like it’s given me the opportunity to expand my social base more, and that because of it, I’ve been able to establish many friendships outside my sport. I was cautious about living with a teammate for next year only because I feel like spending SO much time together might wreck a really good friendship - this was the case with a few of my teammates. However, it works for the majority of guys I know, so perhaps there’s a different social dynamic there.</p>