Your freshman roommate can become your best friend or the reason you are in your room for as little time as possible. As social media continues to dominate college culture, it is becoming more and more popular to find your roommate before you ever step foot on campus. At the same time, plenty of students still leave their roommate assignments up to chance.
So, is it better to choose your roommate or go random? The truth is, there’s no clear answer.
The most popular way of finding a roommate is over social media. Many colleges have Instagram accounts where incoming students post pictures and short bios about themselves. Based on these posts, students reach out to others who they think they might get along with.
However, finding a roommate on social media can be risky. WHS senior Lexie Bowe, who will attend The Ohio State University in the fall, is opting for a random roommate. She believes that “even if you talk to someone online, there’s still no actual way to know who they are and how they live.”
For Bowe, going random is simply part of the college experience. “It is a gamble with who you’re going to get, but to me it’s a part of the college experience that I want to have,” she said.
Some schools actually enforce a random roommate policy for all first-year students. Lizzie Miles, a WHS alum and current freshman at Duke University, found comfort in that system. “Since every freshman at Duke is required to go random, I never had to think about the alternative. Not being able to choose my roommate took a lot of the pressure off,” Miles said.
She isn’t wrong. The pressure of finding a roommate through social media can be overwhelming. Students often find themselves messaging strangers, hoping to find someone who seems compatible enough to live with and willing to choose them in return. For many students, removing that choice eliminates a significant source of stress before college even begins.
At many universities, when you go random, you are required to fill out a survey with your living preferences and personality traits. Miles said that while she and her roommate ended up having “very different friend groups and activities,” they were able to “become close on [their] own, which was ideal.”
Not everyone leaves the process up to chance though. Cassie Solomon, a WHS alum and freshman at the University of Maryland, met her roommate while touring the campus. After realizing they got along well, the two decided to room together, rather than connecting through Instagram.
Stories like Solomon’s demonstrate one of the biggest advantages of choosing a roommate yourself. Some students can feel more comfortable entering college with at least one familiar face and appreciate having greater control over who they will be sharing a space with.
Still, there is no guarantee that choosing a roommate will lead to a perfect match. Likewise, going random does not mean you are destined for a bad experience. Both options involve a degree of uncertainty.
Whether students find a roommate through social media, meet one while visiting campus or trust the university’s matchmaking process, the success of the relationship will ultimately come down to communication and respect. In the end, there is no universally right choice — only the one that feels right for each student.