<p>When Roommates Were Random (NY Times article)</p>
<p>My three older children all went through the random roommate process and the results were, respectively, excellent, good, and poor. Next year, child number four will be entering college and it remains to be seen what shell decide to do. Im curious as to what the CC parents think. Do you agree with the writer of this New York Times op-ed piece that the pros of random selection outweigh the cons?</p>
<p>I think there are some benefits to random selection. Both of my kids filled out questionnaires, and were then paired with a roommate that was not at all like them, didn’t share similar interests, etc. That’s OK, but the questionnaire approach suggested the result would be something different. In both cases, not a big deal. Both boys got along well with their roommates, socialized with others, and chose to live with others sophomore year.</p>
<p>Don’t agree as if two roommates are mostly/completely incompatible in critical ways such as noise/quiet, party animal/studious, etc…that usually ends up being a miserable experience at best…and sometimes an explosive one which ends in fighting. </p>
<p>One high school classmate at an elite private university almost ended up in a fistfight with a roommate because that roommate was coming in loudly drunk, blasting loud music, and sometimes yelling in excitement all at around 2-4 am in the morning. This not only jeopardized the classmate’s ability to sleep enough to make it to his 9 am classes, but also caused the entire room to be hit with a series of noise violations from neighboring dormrooms. </p>
<p>Also had an underclassman roommate at my LAC who played computer games to such excess that he kept me up till 3-4 am, caused some tension when I had to ask him to play those games outside of our room after midnight so I can study/sleep, and after he missed several morning classes in a row…got me drafted by a few of his Profs to act as their messenger to ask him to see them to explain his absences. </p>
<p>After seeing the absurdities of college dorm authorities randomly assigning roommates/dormmates, I’ve often wondered why they couldn’t either allow students to select more compatible roommates, allow more quick roommate changes* as needed, and/or ideally…assign everyone an individual sleeping space in a shared suite/apartment. These suggestions would be far closer to what I’ve experienced finding apartments and roommates after college than college housing authorities randomly assigning roommates. </p>
<ul>
<li>Before I moved in with a group of roommates/friends, they actually had occasion to kick out a roommate for violating their agreement about noise/guests despite everyone having agreed to it as a condition of moving in.</li>
</ul>
<p>My daughter’s school gave them the option of picking their roommate out themselves or letting residential services do it. </p>
<p>If they wanted to pick their own out, they could view a list of students and their info/interests survey, etc, who had applied for the same dorm, and contact each other to see if both parties agree.</p>
<p>We let residential services do it though - the RA I spoke with told me that the level of satisfaction at their school was about the same with doing it either way. </p>
<p>So far her roommate seems just fine and actually they are very compatible. I think it will work out well.</p>
<p>Well, back when roommates were random, I entered college knowing that at least there was exactly zero chance that my roommate’s boyfriend would EVER spend the night, let alone all but move in with us…</p>
<p>But, even then, it could be extremely demoralizing for a student who wanted or needed to spend long hours at study (difficult major, pre-med, need to maintain grades to keep scholarship, or, heaven forbid, filled with intellectual curiosity) to be paired up with an anti-intellectual roommate primarily in college to have a good time, and viewing what they regarded as excessive effort to maintain a top GPA with disdain. Hence the popularity of honors housing or special interest housing at many schools?</p>
<p>My daughter’s college eliminated questionnaires and matching services, you can room with someone of your choosing or be randomly assigned. Their explantion for ending the matching service was that it wasn’t effective - the college suspected that parents answered the questions for their kids too many times. After watching a friend’s daughter’s experience at another school I believe that parents fill out the match forms for their kids…</p>
<p>^ I can understand why the college would give up. It seems to me that it’s a crapshoot, no matter how much you think you know about the other person ahead of time (kind of like marriage ;)).</p>
<p>My daughter and her roommate were a great match on paper, but they never really hit it off from the moment they met.</p>
<p>At my D’s 3-year residential high school, they allegedly pair roommates based on a questionnaire. When we got her first year pairing, we wondered “What were they thinking?” It would be hard to imagine two more different kids. But even though they haven’t become close friends, they’s gotten along well, and are now rooming together for the third year.</p>
<p>D met her roommate at summer orientation and after rooming together decided to go ahead and choose each other as roommates for Freshman year.</p>
<p>Obviously at orientation they were all up late but now that classes have started and D has all morning classes she is finding that her roommate stays up until 2 in the morning and D is having trouble sleeping.</p>
<p>The both felt that they were a good match for each other but now in their second week of classes D doesn’t sound so sure of that. Her roommate seems to lie about on her bed a lot and doesn’t seem willing to join in. D on the other hand has a packed schedule of activities.</p>
<p>Hopefully even if they don’t end up best friends they can get along OK with each other.</p>
<p>We visited one LAC that proudly boasted that 98% of their students in recent years did not ask for a room change. They attributed it to their matching system, which relies on surveys and ONE person doing the matching (yikes for that big job!). </p>
<p>Do you think that is meaningful though? Don’t most students stick it out and not request a roommate change? I would like to see the results of a student satisfaction survey rather than ‘change rate’.</p>
<p>My older son had a three question roommate questionnaire. They weren’t buddies but were pretty similar. (Though I was surprised you could get way messier than my kid.) My younger son had a very elaborate questionnaire and then was paired with someone with whom he had absolutely nothing in common. They got along, but the fact that they kept completely different hours was hard on both of them. (Other kid was an engineer with a.m. classes, my kid was writing papers and had no classes before noon.)</p>
<p>Someone started a facebook group for incoming freshman at my daughter’s school, and she found a girl who seemed to have a lot of similar interests. They decided to room together, along with a third girl who is also into the same things. All three are honors students, so all three take school seriously, and they will be in some of the same classes.
It’s only been 24 hours, but so far, they seem to be getting along great.
I think that was the best way to find a match.</p>
<p>I like the random matching system because, imo, it’s important for kids to have to learn how to get along with someone who they may not necessarily pick as a friend. It’s also usually only for one year. I don’t know of any school that doesn’t allow one to choose their roommate after Freshman year. </p>
<p>There is a thread in this forum from a parent whose son picked his roommate and apparently after only a day or so there were already many problems - the kid he picked was strange, etc., etc., etc.</p>
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<p>I agree. And the other benefit is that random roommate selection can actually be fun! In our house, there has always been a lot of happy anticipation waiting for the roommate information. My older daughter’s freshman year experience pre-dated Facebook and texting, so once she and her roommate had each other’s info, they actually wrote letters to each other over the summer. How funny that seems now.</p>
<p>What sort of hours kept, study habits, that sort of thing, was definitely a big part of the questionaire at my daughter’s school.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen many (well, none actually, lol) of those questionaires, but, I would think that there are probably a lot of questions that don’t matter all that much - but this one, definitely, is important. Seriously clashing wake or sleep times could impact grades and for students with scholarships riding on grades, that’s not something to make them just grin and bear; they really need to be compatible in that one way, I think.</p>
<p>The rest, they can work out. ;)</p>
<p>Snapdragon, I think they can work that out, too. If they study late then they go to the library, or to the lounge. The early riser can set their cell phone to vibrate to wake them up. Kids who want music on all the time can wear ear buds. </p>
<p>Dorm life is a 24 hour thing. Doors slam, kids talk loudly in the hallways and stairwells and in the lounge, etc, etc., etc. The kids in the room next door may blast their music at all hours of the day and night. </p>
<p>Part of college is learning how to adapt. Imo, the lessons kids learn outside the classroom is as important or even more important then what they learn in class. </p>
<p>We all seemed to have survive our freshman year with roommates we didn’t pick.</p>
<p>UW-Madison does random matching and states it works as well as any matching. Students can choose to be roommates if they wish. I saw the change in early morning risings with one random roommate transfer from a dairy farm (commuted to center system campus), not quite as late as I preferred, but not her home hours. My college friends and I could talk for hours but never be compatible roommates, in fact they chose the oldest dorm on campus in the city part while I was Lakeshore and newer style preference.</p>
<p>It was likely culture shock when I was a sophomore with a random freshman from Long Island, NY. She was rich, did Outward Bound, brought purple bedspreads for both of us which I declined because I liked the institutional blue ones provided… I lived in the dorms instead of commuting because of some scholarship money… She was nice but from a totally different world, likely disappointed to not get a freshman…</p>
<p>The only person you get to pick that you spend 8 or more hours a day with is your spouse or significant other. YOu don’t pick who has the office or the cube next to yours, or who is on your team, so I see no big deal with random roommates. You can’t “get to know” someone in a couple month on-line Facebook chat nor should you judge someone by the pictures on facebook. Heck that wild looking girl in pictures could be the brainiac of the future freshman class. Every college will let roommates switch if they are terribly mismatched anyway.</p>
<p>Our student completed a questionaire–
and you don’t answer enough questions to really know what is going to happen…
yet you hope it is someone your student can be relaxed around while in their room.</p>
<p>The roommate seems like a great match–</p>
<p>different race, different region of the country
similar academic interests
and perhaps similar habits/neatness not slob etc</p>
<p>No way to tell what the year will bring-- hopefully they will enjoy similarities, celebrate differences and be supportive of eachother.</p>
<p>“The only person you get to pick that you spend 8 or more hours a day with is your spouse or significant other.”</p>
<p>And half the people who get married get that wrong, too.</p>