As September approaches, incoming freshmen often become nervous imagining who their first roommate will be. Although not everyone becomes lifelong friends with their freshman year roommate, it is undeniable that the quality of residential life and relationship with your roommate can have a heavy influence on the first year experience. After all, roommates must spend a big chunk of time together, and they often end up sharing not only their room, but the same social circle. According to the Office of Residential Life, the majority of these crucial decisions are made by simple computer software in less than five minutes.
Steve Prue, assistant director of Housing Occupancy and Assignments, said the roommate selection process is divided into two parts.
As the office collects the surveys and special housing applications distributed among students at the beginning of the summer, Reslife starts reviewing special housing applications such as the Shaw Leadership Program, honors housing, multicultural leadership experience floors, and healthy alternatives lifestyle floors. This initial process takes several months.
The rest is processed by the computerized matching system that was created in collaboration with Information Technology Services and Reslife.
The system matches the students according to the housing survey that consists of two "preference" questions. Students may indicate their preference for either Upper or Newton campus and for single, double, triple, or quad.
The survey also contains four "lifestyle" questions, which are designed to deal with issues such as neatness, and the students may also indicate their smoking habits and possible health problems.
In addition, there are two more criteria that affect the process. "We try to avoid matching students from the same state. There are a large number of students from Massachusetts, and we try to match them with the students from other states to create a more diverse environment," Prue said. "Also, we try to avoid the students with the same name. Therefore, there is a very slim chance that Brian from Massachusetts will be matched up with another Brian from Massachusetts."
The entire roommate selection depends solely on the survey. "Ethnicity, religion, or academic performance has no influence over the process. You will notice that there is no place to indicate other things on the survey," Prue said. Prue explained that the computerized matching system has a surprisingly high success rate. "Only about 50 students request replacements each year. And often it is not because they have incompatible roommates, but because they wish to live in a different building. There are about 25 students who request roommate changes, and these will be done if there are vacancies in other residential halls. Otherwise, we refer them back to their residential assistant or the residential director. Most of the situation can be solved by creating roommate contracts, where the roommates will agree to compromise."
Cathleen Chopra-McGowan, A&S '10, said that she is in favor of the BC roommate selection system. "I was paired with a roommate who is as much of a neat freak as I am. We also had similar sleeping schedule - we both got up at the crack of dawn and considered our room as a space for studying and resting, rather than socializing. We got along well, and still are good friends after two years," McGowan said.
Alicia Martinez, A&S '12, said that most of her acquaintances are content with their roommates. "I think that the system does a pretty good job matching those with similar lifestyles, despite the fact that the survey is very simple. But I wish that there was a place to indicate interests and majors on the survey. It would be nice to live with someone of similar interests," she said.
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