As residence life offices at colleges nationwide rack up the roommate complaints, schools are opting to institute more in-depth housing questionnaires available on the Web.
These new surveys contain more comprehensive questions and thus “reduce room-change requests by 68 percent the first year,” a recent New York Times article said.
Computer programs such as WebRoomz Housing Software offer a “customizable questionnaire of up to 130 items covering eating habits, social behavior and musical tastes.”
With much more personalized questions, roommates are more accurately matched.
Fairfield’s freshman housing survey, however, only contains seven questions that address sleeping habits, whether silence is required for studying, and whether a student is clean, messy or somewhere in between.
Compared to colleges who have adopted these more thorough questionnaires, Fairfield is trailing far behind. But according to Gary Stephenson, director of Housing Operations at Fairfield, there has been a “95 to 96 percent success rate” in roommate pairing.
Students are matched up according to different locations more than anything else. Those who live in relatively close geographic regions, for example, will not be placed together.
“We try to make people comfortable but give them a new experience,” Stephenson says.
Students agree that Fairfield is successful at roommate pairing.
“[My roommates are] great. I’m always glad to see them. They are the guys I can count on here,” said Brandon Guarino ’10.
Joe Cefoli ’10 agrees: “My roommates are awesome; we have absolutely no problems whatsoever.”
“If there’s [an online] survey that can help us keep that model [of giving students diversity] in place,” then there is some possibility that Fairfield may adapt a similar online survey in the future, Stephenson adds.
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