As many students know first-hand, sometimes roommates just don’t mesh. But with Residential Life’s new matching service, a few clicks of a mouse could ensure a more favorable outcome.
StarRez, the University’s new vendor for housing, is operating and handling everything from housing applications to roommate matching, said Catherine David, associate director of communications and development for ResLife.
Upperclassmen may remember a similar service offered to them when they first applied for housing, but the service was not available to incoming freshmen and students who returned to on-campus housing in fall 2014.
“We’d offered it previous to that a year or two, and then we just didn’t go back with that vendor,” David said. “We were trying to get a new vendor up and running, and it didn’t come to fruition last year.”
Biological engineering freshman Andre Miller said he would use the service to find a roommate if he lives on campus again next fall but did not think the matching would be foolproof.
“Some things even a roommate selective service wouldn’t really catch,” Miller said. “If you have a roommate that’s bad with drugs, I don’t think you would be able to know that.”
Incoming freshmen who have begun the application process can fill out a short questionnaire to find students with similar likes and interests.
The program is set to go live for current students Feb. 11, according to the ResLife website.
“It just asks them about their likes and dislikes, schedules, routines, things like that,” David said. “We have it scheduled to go live for [current students] next week, and so we’ll email them so they can hop on there and try to find roommates.”
For incoming students who indicated a certain type of housing on their initial application, the program will match them with others in the specified residence hall.
According to the StarRez website, students can search eligible roommates, view their lifestyle profiles and message one another.
The previous service matched athletic training sophomore Terradys Bonney with her roommate in McVoy Hall her freshman year.
“I live off campus now, and she goes to a different school, but she still comes and visits,” Bonney said. “I would definitely use it again if I didn’t know people I was going to live with.”
Returning students will have from Feb. 11-18 to begin their application and search for roommates before the contract renewal dates, and all roommate requests must be mutual to be honored.
Students who want to live in East or West Campus Apartments will renew from Feb. 23-26, and those who want to live in residence halls will renew from March 9-13.