THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 9, 1996 TAG: 9608090051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 105 lines
EVEN IF you spend three hours ranking your personality and habits, it's doubtful that you and your college roommate are going to be a perfect match.
So this fall, many universities such as Virginia Tech, Cornell and Old Dominion have scratched surveys and just gone back to simply asking `Do you smoke?'
``In previous years we sent a sheet with about 50 to 70 questions and ran it through the computer and tried to pair compatibility,'' says Terry Durkin, director of housing services at Old Dominion University.
``We found that we had as many conflicts as if we threw them on the floor and picked them up on a random basis. It does help somewhat, but it's not a cure-all to the problem of roommate conflicts.''
Besides, what students put down on their form may not be true. They may wish they were neater. Or their mom might write that they want to live in a single-sex dorm and go to bed by 9 o'clock.
Even if a student is honest, the information may not be accurate, says Mark Doherty, director of the housing division of the University of Virginia.
``So much change takes place in the students in their first year,'' Doherty says. Students' habits in high school aren't the same their freshman year in college.
But despite statistics claiming they're worthless, compatibility surveys are still used by some schools.
Christopher Gatesman, assistant director of residence life at James Madison University, worked 12 hours a day last month pairing students based on 16 lifestyle questions.
How often can visitors come to the room? What's your bedtime? When do you wake up? Can you study with music on? Do you care if your roommate borrows your stuff?
Gatesman first divides the students by gender. Then smoking or non-smoking categories. Single sex or co-ed residence? Substance-free community? International roommate? The populations shrink with each division. Within those clusters, he tries to make sure to match music and sleeping habits.
To follow up its pairing system, JMU sends out a roommate survival kit with a contract for roommates to review and then sign. A ``roommate courtesy agreement'' is basically common sense, Gatesman says.
But even after all that work, roommates often don't get along. For freshmen at JMU it's going to be tough to change rooms this year.
``JMU will be opening with over 100 percent occupancy, so room changes will be very difficult,'' Gatesman says. Facing an all-time-high freshmen enrollment, the school has turned doubles into triples and quadruples.
They're not the only university with overflowing dorms.
``We often have people in lounges,'' says Deb Boykin, director of residence life at the College of William and Mary. ``If someone doesn't like their roommate initially, we often don't have someplace for them to go.''
Most schools make students wait the first two weeks before they'll let them change roommates. That gives the school time to figure out where the empty rooms are (if there are any) and students time to adjust.
``Sometimes people who initially think they're not going to get along - a week later are fine,'' Boykin says. ``But we're not going to make them stay together.''
The process for changing roommates varies from school to school.
Virginia Tech allows roommate switches as early as the summer before classes start. But at most schools students have to wait out the two weeks, and then talk to a resident advisor who counsels both roommates.
Many schools ask students to try to work out their problems. Talk to each other and learn how to compromise, they advise.
Tell your roommate if it bothers you when they dump their dirty laundry in the middle of the room. Or that you don't like them having sex while you're there. (It happens).
``We don't move you just because you say you don't like your roommate. You've gotta work that out first,'' Gatesman says.
Chances are a student won't like his new roommate any better. When students move every time they have a problem, he says, they never learn how to fix it.
``We've had too many students just bounce from room to room and they never get settled,'' Gatesman says. ``Room hopping impacts a student's academic success pretty quickly.''
But other schools, like Old Dominion, don't ask roommates to try to work things out.
``We allow students to change rooms for any reason,'' Durkin says. ``We don't grill them and ask `Why are you changing?' They fill out a form, turn it in and we facilitate the room change.''
Easy as pie.
Even easier - across the boards at all schools - is roommate swapping. If a student can find someone who wants to swap rooms, most schools say that's cool.
Students change rooms for many reasons. Most of the time it's not that they don't like their roommate, but that they keep different hours, or they want to be closer to their friends or the gym, or maybe they heard that the other cafeteria is better.
Many people do walk into their room and leave with their new best friend. (Or at least someone they are able to tolerate). About 98 percent of all roommate pairs work out, says Edward Spencer, assistant vice-president for student affairs at Virginia Tech.
Even if roommates stay together, it doesn't mean they're happy. Freshmen don't move for many reasons. One biggie is that the freshmen dorm quickly becomes a very close-knit community. Friendships are made quickly, and many students won't switch roommates if it means leaving the rest of their buds.
Other students don't move because they get the message early on that there is no place else to go, so they decide to ``just grin and bear it,'' Boykin says.
Sometimes it works out. At William and Mary, the president takes students who stayed roommates all four years to lunch. Together. MEMO: Wendy Grossman is a 1996 graduate of Duke University and a summer
intern at The Virginian-Pilot. ILLUSTRATION: JANET SHAUGHNESSY/The Virginian-Pilot by CNB