RPS seeks input on roommate assignments

Residential Programs and Services is looking at options and seeking feedback from students to improve the way they are assigned roommates.

Changes could take place as soon as next year, said Sara Ivey Lucas, assistant director for housing assignments.

Lucas said RPS wants to make its assignment process more helpful
to students.

“The goal would be to allow students to have more personal control and responsibility over the roommate assignment process,” she wrote in an email.

In the past, companies have offered a method similar to the one used by dating websites. This is essentially a survey that asks students about their hobbies, interests and preferences regarding living arrangements. 

But instead of finding a significant other, it matches roommates, Lucas said.

However, the cost is about $100 for each participant.

For the current school year, assignments were random unless two students mutually requested to live together.

Right now, RPS officials are deciding whether they should pursue an option similar to a matching website or set rules and guidelines on the structure of a new assignment system, Lucas said.

Changing the system has been discussed for about five years, Lucas said, but no
major steps have been taken toward a decision.

The staff wants students to get the best they can but simultaneously not set false expectations that the students will get what they want, she said.

Freshman Katie Owens picked a random assignment and said she likes her roommate.

“It’s pretty good,” she said. “We get along.”

Will Gaslin, a freshman living in Forest Quad, said he knew his roommate for a few years before they lived together.

Gaslin said requesting a roommate was easy, and he  might have used a paid system if he’d had a bad experience.

Each year, 40 to 50 people ask why they received their roommate because they wanted something different. Few realize that assignments are random, Lucas said.

Students can submit feedback about improvements to be made to the current system, whether students would be willing to pay for a matching system and ways they picked who to live with and where.

The information will help future students, Lucas said. Students can email housing@indiana.edu or talk to student government in residence centers to
submit feedback.

RPS could roll out a new system for the next school year. If it’s more complicated, the new system may not be ready until the 2013-14 school year, she said.