USA Today - Facebook Pages Concern Parents of College Freshmen

Parents Forum
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<p>
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celloguy, you are perfectly free to arrange your own life, go for it, but when you sign up for a college, you know full well what you are signing up for, if you want off campus as a freshman, find a school that allows that, live at home, or work ... your choice

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<p>citygirlsmom, yes, you're exactly right, and that was my point. I've put three kids through college so far, and I've seen an overwhelming willingness among resi life staff at top colleges to subject students to miserable living conditions and call it "an educational experience." They're paying above-market room and board and getting squalid, overcrowded, crazy-making living spaces. As parents, we can voice our dissatisfaction. As consumers, we can let the colleges know they need to accept only as many boarders as they can decently accommodate.</p>

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<p>Growing up, I shared a bedroom with my sister. I think families were larger and it was the norm. I no longer think that is the case. In fact, I can think of only ONE of D's friends who shares a bedroom with a sibling. The rest have their own rooms. I think that trend is being carried into colleges. Dorm rooms that maybe have four single 'bedrooms' and those four roommates share a small common area and a bathroom. Allows you to socialize, yet retreat to your own space to study and sleep. My D is one who MUST get sleep or her health suffers. I am keeping my fingers crossed for her freshman year in a double and hoping for a single next year.</p>

<p>I also sometimes think colleges (and maybe parents at times) expect things out of our kids that we would never in a million years expect from ourselves. When the teacher use to put my child between two misbehaving children in class, what did that do for my child?? Nothing, and I complained. If I were in a situation where I had two "misbehaving" adults on either side of me, I would leave. Kids aren't always given that option. When D was visiting schools, she never once spent the night in a dorm. She said, "What am I going to learn from sleeping in a sleeping bag on someone's dorm floor?" I had to agree.</p>

<p>Back to the original USA Today topic - should parents request a change in their child's dorm assignment based on what they have learned/seen on said roommate's Facebook page? If their STUDENT is uncomfortable with what they saw, maybe the student should call residential life and discuss the situation.</p>

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<p>midwestparent says:
[quote]
If I were in a situation where I had two "misbehaving" adults on either side of me, I would leave. Kids aren't always given that option.

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<p>Bravo! You explained that well. Giving "kids" an option teaches them that adults take responsibility for their own lives. They don't meekly surrender their basic human rights to the authority of a teacher, a college, or a government.</p>

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<p>What people seem to forget is that getting to know people takes time and effort. Logging onto any social networking site only takes a password. Chances are that many people would not be friends based only on info on Facebook--or enemies. Snap judgments really just deny your kid a richer experience. Granted, it's tougher to get along with/accept people who are different, but you get more out of it.</p>

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<p>Stanford has a long standing tradition of freshman not finding out who their roommate is until they arrive on campus to move in. The rationale is to avoid forming preconceived opinions of the person before meeting him or her. They do seem to put a lot of effort into matching roommates, and it seems to work well, for the most part.</p>

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<p>Dorms are evolving away from what a few people on here insist is a "critical part of education," i.e. living with strangers. (I wonder if anybody on here is looking forward to their nursing home roommate!) </p>

<p>I think they used to squish kids in just to provide a roof over everybody's head, at an "affordable" price, and they figured everybody could just deal with it. (Or they assumed everyone would be so drunk they wouldn't notice.) </p>

<p>But, you'll notice, now that the competition is getting a little stiff and "consumers" are demanding better housing, they build dorms that really are palaces compared to the bulk of the old stuff they have available on campus. I have yet to see a new dorm going up that offers long halls with doubles and triples. And after one million college trips I've seen a lot of brand new dorms and dorm plans. </p>

<p>So, maybe the educational experience will be diminished for future students, but I sort of doubt it.</p>

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<p>Personally, I don't think there's much value in sharing a bedroom with a stranger. I also think it's a lot more comfortable to meet and spend time with new people if you have a safe and private space you can retreat to from time to time.</p>

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<p>"Worrisome" - certainly emotionally unstable and abusive. </p>

<p>Let's say S's roommate parades around naked all the time, makes threatening gestures and inappropriate sexual or threatening remarks - done in a way that makes S repeatedly uncomfortable (notice I've said nothing about sexual orientation, it could be remarks about sexual prowess with girls) - S needs to discuss with roomie, go to the RA, to housing, through channels, etc, and try to get this resolved. Same with being sexiled or a roommate who is keeping pets, or throws up on your bed every other weekend. This isn't my business as a parent, this is S's to work out - but I think that behaviors that make you uncomfortable in what is your own home, shouldn't be tolerated. Of course, I understand that any or all of these behaviors are perfectly normal for guys in dorms - it would a judgement call as to when it is inappropriate - say the pet bit you?!!</p>

<p>What I would react differently to now is the "creepy" roommate - "my roommate seldom talks and when s/he does, it is only weird responses". That is a phone call I would have blown off 2 years ago, now I would ask some more questions, try to understand if my child is truly disturbed, might even go so far as to visit to meet the roomie - I never would have done that before.</p>

<p>Most kids displaying "bizarre" behaviors are perfectly normal, or are adjusting or changing or discovering who they are. But in this world of "everything has to be perfect" and "everyone has to be tolerant" and HIPAA and antidepressants for any complaint, when Mom and Dad can't be informed of how the child is doing (or Mom and Dad may be the problem), sometimes I think we lose sight of common sense - people who are mentally ill usually DON'T recognize their illness, particularly acutely or new onset AND having a good time is great, but other people deserve respect and to feel safe in their room, regardless of their color, religion, or sexual orientation.</p>

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<p>Some colleges don't give freshman any choice about where they'll live. But after freshman year you can request a single.</p>

<p>And shell out an addition $6000 a year for it.</p>

<p>If it's that important to you.</p>

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<p>Kids have to learn to edit and clear their Facebook pages. They have to do it regularily. Full stop. End of story. </p>

<p>This 'review' of roommates by parents is new--I didn't see this three years ago. Don't like it much. Once again, boomer parents are WAY too involved. </p>

<p>FWIW, we once raised hell with an admin about a roommate--all the way to the Dean of the College. That's because Housing moved a kid into our son's freshman room in early December--a kid who was banned from an entire area of the campus, a kid who assaulted one other student, threatened to assault a co-ed and bragged about hurting people the first night in the room. We didn't call right away because son wanted to 'handle' it--we called two weeks later when son's Chirstmas money went missing. The campus police couldn't believe Housing had moved that psycho in with another student.</p>

<p>Oh--and it was suggested to my son that the school HAD tried to remove the student from the school but the wealthy parents had sued. Lovely.</p>

<p>Within a week, son moved into an empty room on his floor. Yup, they had another empty room on the floor.</p>

<p>Housing must have had their fingers slapped because the following year, Housing assigned son to a teensy triple with a campus activist he'd never met. That was fine. He survived a semester of that no problem.</p>

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<p>I wouldn't think a parent can unilaterally change anything...schedule, roommates, etc...without the kid giving it the blessing.
My son's college won't even talk to me about his "stuff", unless he signs a waiver. He's been there for over a year now, and he never signed the waiver. Not that he/we didn't want to; we just forgot to do it during orientation.
Anyway, even if he had, I don't think I could dictate changes, entirely on my own.</p>

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<p>hswrestling07, Can you please enlighten me -- why is it so important to you to share the room only with a teammate? (scheduling, common interests...?)</p>

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<p>I am frustrated by the sheer economics of the housing situation and believe that when the students/parents are the consumers and bill-payers, there should be quicker recourse/action when there are the type of roommate problems mentioned above.
Room and board is approaching $10-11,000 at every college of which I am aware. Goodness, I pay that amount to feed 5 people and have them live in a 3,000 sf house-with air conditioning. Better food, too.
Some posters said, "...well, you know the conditions going in, if you want a school where you can live on campus, apply there." I believe that's oversimplification. My S made his school choices based on MUCH more than housing. Many of the schools to which he applied require 3-4 years mandatory on campus housing. Seems like media huff-puff to raise tuition a lesser %, require on-campus housing, and then sky rocket room and board.</p>

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<p>srystress, I agree with you! I absolutely look at housing costs, to see what I am going to have to pay for that part of the package. </p>

<p>When I was a freshman I was assigned a lounge at the end of a hallway for a room. My mother was so angry. She asked for the supervisor in housing/res. life and told her that if you were short on housing then you should have accepted less students. My mother told her that she is paying for a room and expects her daughter to have what she is paying for. Guess what, a nice room quickly opened opened up!</p>

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<p>^They put you in a lounge?!</p>

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<p>No, because my mother called res life and complained immediately! Don't know if this is done today. Don't forget this was just a few year ago ;)</p>

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<p>I don't see anything wrong with a student looking up a roommate assignment on Facebook and making a determination about the potential roommate based on what they see.</p>

<p>Facebook can be very telling or not....it depends on the person. Some post pictures of drinking, drugging, smoking and various other activities that may or may not be what a roommate is into or comfortable being around. </p>

<p>I think it's Ok for a college to change a roommate under these circumstances. No reason a student needs to be made to feel uncomfortable in his own room. In these dorm rooms the kids really live in close quarters.</p>

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<p>My older D was put in a lounge with 3 other girls. Reslife said it was only for the first semester because many freshman would drop out or transfer. This was apparently a routine practice. PS about sixty students didn't return and she was moved to a double for spring semester.</p>

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<p>I wish colleges did, in fact, honor those change requests. As a child of parents who are making me change rooms for not-so-kosher reasons stemming from facebook, no one has any idea just how difficult it is to live with parents and their opinions at a time when every other soon-to-be freshman is excited for college. I think I've heard it all, from why-did-you-apply-there-anyway to those-are-not-the-type-of-people-you-should-hang-out-with to you-are-not-going-away-anywhere-if-they-don't-switch you. Sigh.</p>

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<p>cheers, the same thing happened at my school! At my school, where we fill out extensive roomie applications so that people can be amicably matched. But, on the chance that you don't like your roomie, the school makes you go through hell to change it. </p>

<p>One of my 4 roommates last year was crazy. She is black (like me) and from Nigeria. And she would always talk about white people in a negative light. If the room was messy (due to all of our behaviors) she would blame it on our white roomies. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I guess we should have known something was wrong when she kept changing best friends so rapidly. It wasn't like the usual college thing were you feel out people and decide who to become better friends with, this girl would be best friends with people to the point where she would have to be around them all the time and couldn't sleep if they weren't near her. And, she was always unnecessarily rude. We both had a mutual friend who wasn't Christian, and for Christmas I got her a little gift. My crazy roommate tells her that she doesn't deserve the gift because she doesn't believe in Jesus! And behavior like this persisted. She would mercilessly talk about her best friend's boyfriend and make fun of the fact that he carried the gene for sickle cell anemia. She invited a few friends over one night, and convinced them to perform oral sex on a perfume bottle!!!!! One of the girls refused and was immediately emotionally bullied into doing it. I watched, completely shocked. Needless to say, all of these people got tired of her neurotic behavior and dropped her. This left her friendless by Thanksgiving (except for her boyfriend whom she had been dating since over the summer-they met on a Harvard chat room).</p>

<p>And then, when Finals time rolled around, me and the rest of the roomies noticed that she didn't have the healthiest study schedule (she was staying up all night studying for her morning exams). She told us to stay out of her business. Then, because she had been up late studying the night before, she fell asleep during her second exam, causing her to fail it. I guess she just went crazy after this because she tried to hang herself with a bathrobe in her room. She was sent to the hospital who discharged her so she could go home for the break in between first and second semester. At that point, my other roomies and I had assumed that she would take a semester off to clear her head before coming back to school. Boy were we wrong.</p>

<p>She came back one week later ready to start the next semester and said that she had just had a hard time adjusting to college life and after putting things into perspective she was ready for second semester. My roomies and I were hesitant, but the school assured us that she was okay. At first things went smoothly, and then housing time came around. Basically, my roomie didn't have any friends, so she latched onto mine. She individually went around and asked all my friends if she could room with us next year. They all agreed (thinking that I had suggested it) to live with her. Although I was reluctant, I decided that because she had been acting rather normally lately and she didn't have anyone else to live with, she would be fine to live with next year. </p>

<p>And that was a huge mistake! Shortly after housing decisions, things only seemed to get worse. First, her and her boyfriend were having REALLY LOUD unprotected sex (she said she didn't like the way condoms felt and she didn't trust the hormones in birth control), so she had a pregnancy scare every other week. So many times I came into the dorm only to see her and her bf crouched over a pregnancy test. Then, she started getting severe abdominal pain, so much so that she could barely walk and she had to be taken to the hospital and given a morphine drip. Doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong so they just diagnosed her with endometriosis and gave her birth control. This ended the issue of her unprotected sex, but all the days she spent in the hospital caused her to get behind on her work. She got extenstions from all her teachers and everything was fine for a few days. And then her boyfriend convinced her that we were bad roommates because hadn't visited her in the hospital (because we still had class), so she was really upset for a week. </p>

<p>To vent her anger she went out with a casual female friend of hers and they brought 2 guys back to the dorm. She suggested that the 4 of them split into couples and go into separate rooms (to fool around, I guess) and so they all did. About an hour later the guys left and she told her female friend that her and the guy had just made out a little. The next day she told one of my roomies that she had cheated on her boyfriend and actually had sex with the guy from the night before. In fact, she bragged about it. A few more days passed and suddenly she was telling everyone that she had been raped by the guy. When she told me, she actually laughed about the situation, saying that it "felt sorta good." My roomies and I (knowing her crazy personality) suspected that she hadn't been raped at all but were still supportive, nevertheless. But once again it was more drama. First, my roomie refused to talk to anyone about her rape, and we had to spend hours convincing her to talk to a sexual assault counselor. When she finally decided to talk to the counselor she would only do it at really odd hours of the night. So (during finals week) we would hear her crying to the sexual assault counselor at like 4 AM. Now, all of us empathized with her so none of us said anything. On top of that, my roommate kept missing her doctors appointment (he was supposed to give her medicine to prevent STDs) because she refused to, in her own words, "put unneccesary drugs in her body." So, we had to spend days convincing her to take the medicine so that she didn't contract any STDs. </p>

<p>Meanwhile, my roomie had gotten even more extensions on her work. Yet, she would sleep all day and watch movies every night. She never touched her work. I guess she was depressed. So, work that she hadn't even done from the middle of the semester when she got her "endometriosis" was still undone and she had finals coming up. So she got even more depressed and started talking about committing suicide again. Our proctor (tantamount to an RA) told her that she had to go to the hospital, but my roomie ran away. They had to call the police to come get her and forcibly take her to the hospital. Stupidly enough, the hospital released her about an hour later and she came back to our room. The next morning we all awoke to find a suicide note saying that we could have all her stuff and that she had a 10 ft. rope and was going to kill herself. So, we spent all morning looking for her and then I had to go take an exam about an hour later! Throughout this entire semester-long ordeal she kept telling everyone that she was perfectly okay, even though we knew she wasn't.</p>

<p>After all that drama, my friends and I decided that we didn't want to live with her next year because she was obviously unstable, but the housing office said that in order to not live with her, we had to get her to recuse herself from our living arrangements the following year!! We tried to explain to them all that had happened and that we didn't think she would react well to us asking her to leave the group, but they still said it was on us. So, we discussed it with her and she assured us that she was fine (just as she did after first semester) and wanted to live with us. She was basically refusing to remove herself from our housing arrangement, so the housing director told us that we had to live with her. My mom had to call the school and threaten legal action if they didn't get her out of our group and they reluctantly agreed.</p>

<p>The scariest part is that once again (after 2 suicide attempts) they are going to let her return to school in the fall.</p>