Ellen Roof, Culture & Thought Editor

Room picks are often equated with significant amounts of drama.  Choosing a roommate and the location of a room can be more stressful than receiving a random roommate assignment freshman year. As I like to think about it, if a student does not like his freshman year roommate, he played no role in the selection process; if someone does not like his roommate any other year, it is his own doing.

Most students like being randomly assigned to freshman year roommates as it encourages students to branch out and meet new people.  “I think the random roommate process the first year is a necessary experience because it exposes people to what they might not have known they like or dislike in who they are living with,” noted sophomore Sara Spittler.

The real room pick drama begins the spring of freshman year (and every spring following it), when students have the chance to decide if they want to remain in their current dorm, who they want to live with and where they want to live within a specified dorm.

To do this, dorm residents are separated by class year and are randomly assigned a lottery number.  On the night of room picks, rising seniors select their rooms of choice, beginning with the students who have the lowest lottery numbers.  Rising juniors follow, often disappointed at just how quickly the desirable singles and quads are snatched by eager seniors.  Prior to room picks many rooms are reserved for incoming freshmen, leaving the rising sophomores stuck with the scarce remains of unwanted rooms.

Low lottery numbers can make or break a room pick.  Students can have a perfect plan for the ideal rooming situation and, all of a sudden, find their desired room taken on the night of room picks by someone with a better lottery number.  “I think that the current system is a good concept, but it doesn’t always provide fair choices for everyone,” remarked sophomore Rachel Hughes.  “I’m very lucky that I’ve had a great pick two years in a row, but some of my friends have gotten lower lottery numbers both years and end up at the very bottom of the list.”

Consider this: A group of students planning on living in a triple find that all the triples have been chosen by the time they have the chance to select their room.  Now, the students will need to completely change their living arrangements and break into doubles.  Of course, a group of three students cannot split evenly into two doubles, forcing someone to be left out in the cold to find a new roommate. “So far there hasn’t been much drama in my dorm, but I can imagine that, in some of the other dorms that are expanding rooms to force a quad or a triple, it’s hard for the current residents to totally re-think who they are going to room with next year,” Hughes commented.

Many dorms are working to eliminate this surprise factor in the room pick process by putting out the dorm floor plan in the lobby. That way students can place sticky notes on the rooms they are planning on selecting.  “I love how Pangborn puts out the floor plans so you can see exactly what is available and where upperclassmen have already chosen their rooms,” noted Hughes.

Drama may be heightened for students studying abroad during the fall semester.  “I’m studying abroad next fall and not guaranteed to get placed back in O’Neill for the spring semester,” remarked sophomore Evan Merryman. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I go from air-conditioning to an older dorm like Dillon or Morrissey.” Other students are not as worried because their dorms have sufficient space to house the students returning from fall study abroad programs.

“Our rectress already informed us that there will be openings in Pangborn in the spring, so I’ll be able to come back after spending my fall semester in Mexico,” sophomore Sarah Schluckebier commented.

For some, the drama lies not in the availability of rooms but in the selection of roommates.  Many students have complained about friends waiting until the day before room picks to let them know they already have rooming arrangements with other people.  “My room pick experience last year was awful,” explained Spittler.  “I ended up getting totally blindsided by a group of girls who blatantly left me hanging and ended up rooming with someone I had met the night before picks.”

As difficult as it may be, it’s important for everyone to sit down with his or her current roommate(s) and discuss rooming plans for the following year.

Ellen Roof is a sophomore majoring in marketing and psychology who is hoping to get a prime room with her new roommate, Catherine Rice.  Contact her at eroof@nd.edu.