College Parent FB groups

[SnuggleBuggles]

Wow! I was not on FB so I never joined. The school wanted my eldest to join to the class of 2025 FB group to find a roommate and he was, no way. He found his roommate via Instagram? Maybe Discord? I think Discord. I never got into any patient group. I don’t feel like I missed anything. It also meant I had to let him figure stuff out more, which worked fine. I probably saved money by no feeling like, Oh, maybe we should get this for your dorm room.

They really do have their merits. It’s easy to tune things out and focus on the overwhelming helpful info.

Eta- I don’t know how people not on those pages know, for example, that you have to (and can) book your hotel for graduation as soon as the ceremonies end in spring for the next year. Or what popular hotel holds a lottery for rooms and how to enter that. There are so many things that I would have had to learn the hard way if I turned my back on this resource.


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[MMMommy]

I am on the FB page for the college my son decided on and omg. I can't stand at least 50% of the parents who post there. There is some sort of obsession with them finding their kid a roommate! The last thing I want to do is to be the one responsible for finding my kid a roommate, have faith in the process or let the kids use profiles to find a roommate if they want to! My son is opting to get matched by the system based on his profile.

I am with you on this one. DD1 already submitted her housing application without any roommate specification. She did put down her preferences for lifestyle habits and such. Back in the day we didn't pick roommates! I met my dorm roommate the moment the person walked through the door-- no matching questionnaires, zero knowledge of who the person was in advance, etc. It was "you get what you get." And now everyone is scrambling to find a roommate beforehand? Feel so overwhelmed by all of this!

[NCGrandma]

I am with you on this one. DD1 already submitted her housing application without any roommate specification. She did put down her preferences for lifestyle habits and such. Back in the day we didn't pick roommates! I met my dorm roommate the moment the person walked through the door-- no matching questionnaires, zero knowledge of who the person was in advance, etc. It was "you get what you get." And now everyone is scrambling to find a roommate beforehand? Feel so overwhelmed by all of this!

Are a lot of BBB'ers kids actually lining up their roommates in advance through social media etc? Any obvious patterns to where this happens, like SLACs or big state universities etc?

I certainly remember the "you get what you get" era, and in my case, what I got was very problematic… (It was bad enough that they let me move to a single down the hall.) I do remember kids from the same home towns requesting someone but otherwise, no possibility of selecting.


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[SnuggleBuggles]

Are a lot of BBB'ers kids actually lining up their roommates in advance through social media etc? Any obvious patterns to where this happens, like SLACs or big state universities etc?

I certainly remember the "you get what you get" era, and in my case, what I got was very problematic… (It was bad enough that they let me move to a single down the hall.) I do remember kids from the same home towns requesting someone but otherwise, no possibility of selecting.


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Mine opted to just go random. His roommate was fine but 2 super nice, quiet introverts made the initial find a friend phase hard. They both switched dorms after winter break to live with other people.
His school has zero questionnaire or other tools that the school would use to pair kids- it’s truly random.


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[essnce629]

Are a lot of BBB'ers kids actually lining up their roommates in advance through social media etc? Any obvious patterns to where this happens, like SLACs or big state universities etc?

I certainly remember the "you get what you get" era, and in my case, what I got was very problematic… (It was bad enough that they let me move to a single down the hall.) I do remember kids from the same home towns requesting someone but otherwise, no possibility of selecting.


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My son went random. He's at a small liberal arts college and everyone there goes random as far as I know as they seem to have a great system. DS and his roommate got along fine, but because of the over enrollment issue that many schools struggled with this past fall (vs under enrolled in fall 2020), they were placed in off campus dorms instead of the usual on campus freshman dorms. It was actually an old hospital converted to dorms and their room was giant as they were in the "delivery room." It was the smallest dorm though and the most isolated, so DS moved into his frat house right before winter break and his roommate was able to move to an on campus freshman dorm at the same time. DS will be in the frat house next year too so we don't have to worry about storing stuff over summer or bringing much home.

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[gymnbomb]

Are a lot of BBB'ers kids actually lining up their roommates in advance through social media etc? Any obvious patterns to where this happens, like SLACs or big state universities etc?

I certainly remember the "you get what you get" era, and in my case, what I got was very problematic… (It was bad enough that they let me move to a single down the hall.) I do remember kids from the same home towns requesting someone but otherwise, no possibility of selecting.


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For the one I am in it is more sophomore and juniors parents looking for roommates. Some are kids whose originally planned roommates pulled out of the arrangement for whatever reason, and others are kids who planned to live on campus another year but are way down the waiting list and are now scrambling to find a place off campus.

But yes, I find it very odd! I had a lot of different living arrangements in college. I shared a dorm room with a friend from high school, I shared a dorm room with a random person, I had my own apartment, and I shared a house with some other girls I had met when I lived in the dorm. But I definitely never would have had my parents look for a roommate for me.


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[KpbS]

I had a horrible assigned roommate sophomore year and very much wish there had been some sort of match system in place. She stole my care package food and ate it on my bed, leaving the trash behind.

There is no parent group for the school DS1 is likely to attend.

[khm]

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTd4Ws7vq/

This TikTok blew up RIGHT after my parent facebook group blew up with a mom complaining about her kid's 8 pm exams - big feelings on both sides of that one. I honestly double-checked if this TikTok mom was in our group b/c it sounded just like what I see on so many topics! Alas, "same" group, different school.

My daughter couldn't get herself to do any of the social media roommate matching. It just made her cringe to her bones. She knew a lot of kids that did fine with random, so she did random. It did not go well!!

But, there are people who matched and met prior who also did not go well when they actually lived together. (shrug). My daughter's roommate moved out and my daughter was then able to move in a friend who was transferring in after not liking her initial college choice, nor her matched roommate who she'd spent a lot of time with over the summer. She really expected they'd get along fine, but that was NOT at all the case!

There is a lot of drama with cramming kids newly on their own into tiny spaces, always has been, always will be.

[bisous]

DS1 just went through this! He opted to choose his roommate from lots of options, lol. He will at least have similar interests in entertainment and music and similar schedules. We'll see if it pans out for him!

Regarding FB groups, I feel like it just goes to show how incredibly lucky we all are to have the BBB. Inevitably when I find another interest group it is never QUITE as helpful, informative, or level headed as this little board! I think that's why we've all stayed here, moving seamlessly from night wakings, to potty training, to middle school and now the BBB goes to college.

[AnnieW625]

I am with you on this one. DD1 already submitted her housing application without any roommate specification. She did put down her preferences for lifestyle habits and such. Back in the day we didn't pick roommates! I met my dorm roommate the moment the person walked through the door-- no matching questionnaires, zero knowledge of who the person was in advance, etc. It was "you get what you get." And now everyone is scrambling to find a roommate beforehand? Feel so overwhelmed by all of this!

Yep me too! And then it was on the university to make a change of things didn’t work out. I hope DD1 does the same thing. I have heard of friendships being ruined when HS friends became roommates.


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