Which colleges do random roommate selection?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wesleyan—don’t even bother with questions

That’s a good point. My personal ideal is mandatory random, but with questionnaire on living habits.

[Anonymous]

CNU lets you pick a roommate but it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be assigned to each other because they prioritize the learning community system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Davidson. School assigns based on an interesting questionnaire and MBTI. It’s a big part of campus culture, in a good way.

So ... basically random.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Optional random is common, but it's not great for the kids. Mandatory random is really much better.

Can you explain why optional random is not a good option for girls?

[Anonymous]

Mandatory random at F&M (with questionnaire, also tied to which first year seminar you choose, as first years are also assigned a "house" with people in the same seminar).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Optional random is common, but it's not great for the kids. Mandatory random is really much better.

Can you explain why optional random is not a good option for girls?

Not the person who wrote this, but I imagine it's because there is a lot of stress over finding a roommate on your own through social media, etc. If you don't find one, then you arrive on campus already feeling like a loser. So if you are randomly assigned a roommate, there's a stigma -- "she couldn't find someone online."

I hate this and wish all schools did random (with questionnaires, sure) assignment of roommates. Who needs the pressure of matching up with someone on your own?

[Anonymous]

Amherst requires random assignment

[Anonymous]

Yeah, the stress of finding a roommate (and it starts immediately after a decision!) is huge and completely unnecessary.

I'd bet that self-selected roommates end up no happier than randomly selected ones (though I have no data to support that).

[Anonymous]

Mandatory assignment at Bowdoin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't most colleges at least make it an option?

DS is at VT and you can find a roommate via social media but if not, you fill out a roommate profile. When it's your time to pick a room, you can either pick an empty bed in a room and a future student can see your profile and choose the other bed. Or you can look at profiles of people in a room with an available bed and choose one of them. DS decided the easiest thing would be to pick the empty room. Ended up with a good roommate. They were friendly and compatible enough for that year but didn't keep in touch after that.

DC is going to RIT and it's the same. It seems totally crazy to me to pick a specific room / bed, but I guess it's all what you're used to?

[Anonymous]

Mandatory Random for harvard freshman

[Anonymous]

What about Princeton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Optional random is common, but it's not great for the kids. Mandatory random is really much better.

+1

[Anonymous]

Smith allows students to find their own roommate but most go random.

[Anonymous]

Mandatory random at Amherst, with short questionnaire on things like bedtimes and preferred noise levels.