mlktwins Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 🙄 Neither of my guys want to do the social media thing to find a roommate. I know mine aren't the only ones. In the JMU 2027 FB group, all the girl moms are wanting to know where to go to find roommates. Insta, FB, etc. A boy mom responded that her son said, "H$LL no to that!" LOL. A bunch of responded the same of our sons. A lot of the boys are saying they are going to wing it and meet people when they get there. JMU has pretty good success with roommate matching. Not sure about UMW, but I guess we will find out. I'm going to let it go since mine aren't doing the social media thing. Anyone going through this? Boys or girls? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 My sons had great luck with their random roommates - close friends for life. It's really amazing. Dd chose one roommate out of two and that roommate ended up being a nightmare. My college roommate (random) and I had a rough start due to coming from totally different backgrounds but became very close and still are today - almost 38 years later. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mlktwins Posted March 3, 2023 Author Share Posted March 3, 2023 3 minutes ago, Kassia said: My sons had great luck with their random roommates - close friends for life. It's really amazing. Dd chose one roommate out of two and that roommate ended up being a nightmare. My college roommate (random) and I had a rough start due to coming from totally different backgrounds but became very close and still are today - almost 38 years later. I met my roommate at orientation and we hit it off for that day (way before social media). However, she was a nightmare and I went home every weekend and cried on my mom's shoulder every time I had to drive back. Got the RA involved and everything. She locked me out of my room (I was in a friend's room down the hall) to have tEa in our room 🙄. This was just one of many things that weren't good. Thankfully, I got a new roommate the 2nd semester and we stayed together the remainder of college. Ironically, her crappy roommate and my crappy roommate decided they wanted to room together and we were ok with it. Best thing ever! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teachermom2834 Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 One ds found a roommate through social media and it was a nightmare. One ds found a roommate through a honors college meet and greet zoom meeting for an honors LLC. They had a little time to introduce themselves and say what kind of roommate they were looking for and a little about themselves and info was provided to reach out to people after if they wanted to room together. A kid reached out to my ds and they talked a bit and decided to room together. They have been best friends and continued to room together every year. Random isn’t bad. It comes with the advantage of taking the pressure off of being friends. When you meet over social media and have the idea you will get along and be friends it puts more pressure on to get along and hang out and socialize. Random roommates come with less pressure and more of a business arrangement and then if it develops into a friendship, that’s great but the pressure isn’t there so much as when you go in expecting to get along? It’s really a crap shoot. Even kids that go together from the same home town have issues. If your kids want to go with random matching I think that is just fine. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) I think stat wise, unless colleges are doing really thorough match ups (only one LAC my kids have applied to seemed like it did this and had a good track record), I think the stats on self picked via social media vs. random are really similar for "success". Also, like on my kid's big campus, there are lots of dorms all over the place. If you request a certain roommate, odds are much lower on getting the part of campus you might prefer. Which can feel like a big deal if it's a 20+ minute walk and you have an 8 am class in the winter. This is totally my kid's decision. In some ways, random feels like you're just room mates, it's fine if you aren't BFFs as long as you are, respectful of each other. I've seen kids be disappointed when they hand pick someone, spend welcome week glued together and it doesn't go well. The other thing is 18 year olds aren't generally super self aware. Just because a kid says they're going to be a certain kind of roommate/student does not make it so. I think a lot of students describe themselves as the roommate they hope to get and not who they actually are. My senior feels miles away from making these kinds of decisions! After she picks, she has to decide if she wants to apply for honors, other leadership programs etc that may have housing options. Edited March 3, 2023 by catz 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusyMom5 Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 My DD plans are private room with shared bath in the Honors college. Shes going to just wing it and hope for the best! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokotg Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Mine have both let their colleges match them, and it's been fine. No super close friendships have developed, but they've all gotten along fine (and then met friends to live with in later years). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freesia Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 Both my kids had colleges that assigned randomly. Ds and his roommate roomed together all four years. Actually his college had a placement program developed by a grad student that I thought was really good. Dd’s never showed up. After watching a friend’s dd do the social media route I would never advise my dc to do it. It was very devastating. She had to deal with rejection prior to her freshman year. It really hurt her confidence. Her brother went to the same school, just placed himself in a room and left it up to chance. That roommate was his best man last year. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 At all of my dc's schools, the university offered a questionnaire, then indicated which unassigned students were the closest matches. It was up to students to decide if they wanted to connect to agree on a match or if the university would simply assign them a roommate. My oldest waited until the last possible day to find a match and got a nightmare roommate who moved out at semester and was replaced by a slightly better one. Dc#2 chose a bit sooner and picked someone who was a decent roommate. Dc#3 started early. That dc used the university's questionnaire results to find roommate options, then searched the incoming freshman FB page to find out more about them and interacted via private message with several people before choosing one who has turned out to be an excellent roommate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrips Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 My kids are trying the roommate matching on their schools housing site. There’s about 12 questions with answers to select- time you sleep, wake up, okay to leave dishes in sick overnight, like to keep neat and clean, smoking, drinking, overnight guests, how often be in the room, frequent friends/company, emotional support pets, stuff like that. Plus they can write a little bio and say something about themselves. The system orders your matching roommates by a percentage of how close your answers match. Then you can contact a potential roommate through the portal email system. And create a roommate group if you want. It takes the emotion out of the process and has them focus on compatibility. Still in the process so we’ll see how it goes. Lol. Sounds good on paper! 🙂 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Governess Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 My dd used her university’s matching system and reached out to two girls that were a high match after looking them up on Instagram. One already had a roommate but they ended up working together and became friends anyway. She roomed with the other girl and they had a great year and are planning to live together next year too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirstenhill Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 My DD had no interest in the find-a-roommate-on-social-media thing either. Her university makes no matching efforts (other than self selecting for certain learning communities/honors, which DD did not go for). Her random worked out passably - they are not friends but DD didn't feel the need to move a semester either. I see lots of posts from the department of residence about using the room change portal even mid-semester so it seems changes are possible if needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 Mine’s was randomly assigned and just a few weeks before school started. Even though they’re from the same general geographic area we and DS didn’t meet the kid and his parents until move in. It’s been fine, and frankly I’m glad it was random. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eos Posted March 5, 2023 Share Posted March 5, 2023 (edited) Oldest was random and had two terrible roommates. 2nd and 3rd at the same school with a proactive matching service had differing luck: dd and her fantastic roommate had both carefully gone through the matching questionnaire and ended up rooming together all four years. Ds and his roommate could have been fine but roommate left after a term and ds had a divided double after that so rarely saw his. I'm curious if gender is an issue. It was easy for my two sons to kind of blow off their bad roommates but dd would have been devastated if hers had been "bad" ie incompatible, obnoxious, unkind as were her brothers'. Editing to add dd and her roommate were both conservatory students and both answered very specific questions about how you listen and to what kind of music 🙂 Edited March 5, 2023 by Eos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ByGrace3 Posted March 6, 2023 Share Posted March 6, 2023 Thinking back, I doubt my mom thought one second about how I would choose a roommate, lol. However, I have given this so much thought the last few months. At the college my dd is going to she will be on an athletic team and everyone on the team is in one hall and she was told that her roommate would be another teammate. However, an upperclassman on the team was losing her roommate next year and reached out to my dd (they met at a practice on campus) and asked her if she would room with her and dd said yes. Part of me is relieved she has it worked out but part of me is concerned she won't have another freshman as a roommate (although that is a semi moot point as dd will be a sophomore according to hours). But dd is excited to have it worked out and I am happy for her. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NittanyJen Posted March 7, 2023 Share Posted March 7, 2023 On 3/3/2023 at 10:31 AM, mlktwins said: 🙄 Neither of my guys want to do the social media thing to find a roommate. I know mine aren't the only ones. In the JMU 2027 FB group, all the girl moms are wanting to know where to go to find roommates. Insta, FB, etc. A boy mom responded that her son said, "H$LL no to that!" LOL. A bunch of responded the same of our sons. A lot of the boys are saying they are going to wing it and meet people when they get there. JMU has pretty good success with roommate matching. Not sure about UMW, but I guess we will find out. I'm going to let it go since mine aren't doing the social media thing. Anyone going through this? Boys or girls? Neither of mine chose a roommate in advance. My oldest has found he has always just gotten along with rooommates— even now that he’s been renting an off-campus apartment for a couple of years, sharing his apartment with strangers (they all have separate locking bedrooms and separate leases, and share main living space, kitchen, and 2 bathrooms). My younger is still a freshman, and was assigned to a single, which has been both good and bad— as an introvert, he likes having a completely private space to end up in at the end of the day. But, as an introvert, it’s been harder to meet people and make friends, because there is no natural person to head to dinner with, or just decide to go to the gaming zone with, and since he doesn’t naturally reach out, nobody bangs on his door, either. So the single (which he didn’t request) has been a yay/boo. But, he says next year he wants to stay on campus, and he’s again taking the “eh, whoever they assign me to will be fine” route, like his brother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skimomma Posted March 7, 2023 Share Posted March 7, 2023 Mine did do what we jokingly call "Roommate Tinder" to find a freshman year roommate. I didn't have an opinion either way and just stayed out of it as a parent. The university did have everyone do a questionnaire so that they had a good shot of decent matches for the people who did not find (or want to find) their roommate through the "Roommate Tinder." I will say that there were some bumps along the way with outreach to potential matches leading to rejection but in the end a match was found and they are currently the best of friends and are now living off campus together. So, it was well worth the effort in our case. The dorms at this particular university are "old school" with double occupancy rooms with communal bathrooms down the hall so I feel like a good match might be more important than cases where there are suites or other set-ups where people are not 24/7 on top of each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 I was shocked that my kid did do the social media thing to find a roommate. He and another kid met on the college Discord. It has worked out fine. They were very practical and asked each other about their level of messiness, their general hours, their approach to work. He and the roommate haven't become great friends. My kid has found a tight social group and the roommate apparently is a bit of a loner but hangs out with them. My understanding is that the success rates for picking your own and the college matching you up are nearly the same. That's why some colleges don't like to match kids anymore. But it's so cruel when they force them to find a roommate. It's just so hard on kids to have to connect and pick like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SweetCicely Posted March 11, 2023 Share Posted March 11, 2023 My DD at UMW went random her freshman year and had issues with her roommate mainly due to very different sleep schedules. She goes to bed pretty early for a college student and her roommate stayed up most of the night. I don't think it was the school's selection process at fault, just the roommate's habits changed after she came to school. This year was much better since she got to know people and make a more informed decision. If I remember correctly the students at UMW are assigned to dorms based on their fsems, so that does limit the people you can live with there. Unless you've lived with that person before there are no guarantees either way. I don't think it matters which way a student goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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