I was allocated a random roommate. No single room options for a freshman. Fortunately, I remembered Kirk's solution to the Kobayashi Maru, and applied that knowledge to get a single.

I'm still friends with my random freshman roommate from college.

Quiet, shy, introverted DD with ADHD/OCD has been randomly assigned a triple. I’m quietly freaking out. I guess I should start my own thread. 😩

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you team random! Hope it works out. Will post in a year.

I do hope if best friend comes back next year and wants to room with my son he does say no sophomore year. It’s one thing to be upfront and tell someone you aren’t going to room with them, it’s quite another to wait till room selection (months after committing) to do it.

OP, you’re really taking this too personally. I can’t believe you’d want his best friend to suffer. He did the right thing. You would be even more pissed if he went out w/o your DS while they were roommates. Also, if it was reversed, how would you feel? And, don’t you dare say your precious DS would never do that.

Anonymous wrote:My son’s high school best friend decided not to room with him as a freshman, which is fine but I’m annoyed he decided literally during the room selection process midsummer. He went to orientation and decided to go with a kid he met there instead. My son didn’t have that opportunity as he couldn’t go to orientation due to other commitments until the fall.

My son is a nice drama free kid. Freshman year he’ll have a completely random roommate. My older daughter was going through the stress of sophomore roommate selection while taking OCHEM. That ended up being a drama filled section but junior and senior year no drama fortunately.

Any ideas of how I can encourage him to find friends to room with as a sophomore that will result in no drama other then trying to find a single?

Stop micromanaging his life! If he’s truly is a “nice drama free” kid, he’ll figure it out. My oldest managed it. He won’t be the only kid on the universe to not room with his dorm mate — if that even happens! This is not a problem. Why don’t you throw some positive vibes at it?!?!

OP, from my small sample of DS's friends rooming with high school friends can make the first year more isolating because they tend to stick together and not put themselves out there to meet new people. Everyone in my son's friend group came back with glowing reports about college social life at Christmas EXCEPT the two guys from high school who roomed together. One of them was an introvert and fine with it, but the other realized that he had missed out on chances to meet new people and then, when the initial friend-making flurry was over, he was alone with his roommate. He did go on to make other friends but it was more work and took longer.

I would just encourage your son to stick it out those first few uncomfortable weeks and be social with as many new people as he can. He should not rely on his high school friend for every social thing he does. My son is very extroverted and kind of freaked out at first because he literally had no friends. But then he realized most people didn't so he just started hanging out with random different people until he found some he totally vibed with. If your son is a little quiet, I would also encourage him to try new clubs, especially at the beginning when other people are trying new clubs because they have no friends yet.

He has a long time before he has to pick another roommate. Don't stress about it. Just make sure he is being responsible about staying aware of the process. In our college FB group there is always one or two moms reporting that their child somehow missed housing selection for the next year and were stuck with some really crappy arrangement.

Anonymous wrote:My god the level of hovering and enmeshment with these kids. It is bonkers.

Disagree. I got almost no parental guidance when I went off to college and I could have used some. I have a rising senior who when we finally figured out after sophomore year, that he needed a single to thrive, it made all the difference. I probably would have definitely done better with a single in college as well. It just wasn't even discussed thought of or considered. You just dealt with roommate drama non-stop and that was it. Stupid solution actually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He needs to join a fraternity.

He’s quiet with a difficult STEM major.

He needs to join some sort of club/extracurricular. It doesn't need to be an exclusive resume building activity -- just something to get out of his room and meeting a variety of people. That way he'll have choices when it comes to sophomore year housing.

Thank you! That is good advice. This is the type of advice I am looking for.

Also, unsure which school he's going to, but if he's outdoorsy, I know several VA publics have cheap overnight camping trips or hiking day trips or whatever. A good way to get to know people

OP here. Thank you team random! Hope it works out. Will post in a year.

I do hope if best friend comes back next year and wants to room with my son he does say no sophomore year. It’s one thing to be upfront and tell someone you aren’t going to room with them, it’s quite another to wait till room selection (months after committing) to do it.

I would not promote a single room for a freshman, too isolating. Remember, this is your son’s responsibility to deal with. Your job is to be POSITIVE about whatever he decides to do. My son’s both had random freshman roommates and it worked out well.

Our roommates were chosen randomly and they didn’t care anything about compatibility. Parents didn’t come up to the rooms back then, they had their own lives.

I went into my tiny room and my roommate was already there. She had stuffed animals everywhere and it was clear we weren’t compatible. A girl was coming down the hall and she told me her roommate came in for five minutes and said she shouldn’t have been assigned there. The Black students had requested they had a certain area for them. So problem solved I moved in with her and we were good friends.

We had a triple room and a student moved in a week later. She was 27 years old. She ended up moving to my old room because we weren’t exactly quiet or sober on the weekends. She understood that her being older that a quiet room would be best for her.

The students moved and switched rooms themselves if there was a compatibility problem. We solved our own problems. No calling mom to call the housing director and fix the problem.

Anonymous wrote:I also think it's a blessing in disguise that your son will be going random with his roommate. I do hope that if the high school friends comes back later and asks to live with your son next year, that your son has a group of other friends to live with.

Good lord you people are petty.

26 years later and I’m texting both my random roommate from 1998 as I read this thread and my random dorm mate from 1999. We are across the country from my grad school but DH’s random hall mates live down the street from us in two different directions and we see them weekly.

Team random. Let life and fate take its course. It might turn out great. I did squabble with my freshman year roommate because she had sisters and was a well-adjusted normal person, and I was a total weirdo with just a brother and a family that underparented me. I tell people my roommate raised me and they think I’m kidding, but she really did teach me how to interact with others as an adult.

DD found a friend on the college IG, they seemed compatible, but decided not to room together the following year and will not/do not stay in touch (is rooming junior year with friend she chose to room with sophomore year). DS got a random roommate, and they lived together all 4 years (years 3 and 4 with several other boys too in a group house).

It's all random, you can choose someone you think it will work with and it might not, and you can go random and up with a friend for life

In all honesty, I recommend that anyone try to get a single room. The best way to ensure roommate peace is to not have one.