Camilla Bykhovsky
Sports Editor
While packing boxes and buying accessories to decorate a dorm can be exciting, a concern of many incoming freshmen is whom they will be sharing their room with for the next year.
Instead of colleges implementing their own processes to help match incoming freshmen with their best match for a roommate, most have turned to websites that approach the situation in a way that is similar to online dating.
“At Northeastern, I used the online matching website because I didn’t want to choose a roommate and then feel obligated to be friends with them,” Margeaux Gaede (’14) said. “I just wanted someone to coexist in the same room and to get along, but not be my best friend.”
Approximately 31 percent communicate with their roommate via Facebook before getting to college according to Niche, a college review and ranking website.
“I opted for random rooming, but I had a rough experience,” Boston University freshman Kailen Santos (SHHS ’14) said. “He was a nice guy, but we didn’t click all that well because he was on the messier side. After the semester my friend and I decided to room together and have our roommates room together, so it all worked itself out in the end.”
Some colleges use websites and questionnaires to help match roommates who decided to go for the random housing to match up essential qualities such as cleanliness, bedtime, majors and preferred housing.
“When I looked at the housing questionnaire, it was too broad for my comfort,” senior Sabine Dahi, who plans on attending the University of Wisconsin said. “I have been talking with my roommate for some time now and we both seem really similar in our interests, so instead of risking it and going random, I decided to room with her and at least have one familiar face on my first day.”
Websites allow incoming freshman and returning students to fill out an online form so that any other student that filled it out from their particular school will get matched depending on similarity with the questions answered.
“I used options like Roomsurf and Roomsync, that just matches you with other people, but I ultimately ended up finding mine when she posted in the group,” Dahi said. “I reached out to her because I thought we were really compatible and I wanted a roommate who was not high maintenance and generally a relaxed person that I could live well with.”
While one can choose her roommate and be satisfied, others may go for random, which may result in two people getting paired who may never get along.
“I thought that getting a random roommate would help me branch out and meet new people, but I do wish I had looked for a roommate because what I did not think of was the fact that this random person would be living with me for an entire year,” Santos said. “Next year I will be getting a suite and living with six of my friends, which I am really looking forward to.”
