College Roommate Questionnaire: 5 Best Practices

Living with strangers is one of many unique stressors first-year students face when moving from home into shared college accommodation. Housing teams can make this transition to college life easier by asking students questions about what type of roommates they want to live with, resulting in better social experiences. Here are some tips for creating an effective college roommate questionnaire and the benefits of using a student housing platform for this purpose. 

What Are Roommate Questionnaires?

Roommate questionnaires gather information from students moving to a shared living space on campus, whether that's residence halls, apartments, themed houses, or Greek houses. By asking questions about living arrangements, study habits, and other preferences, colleges can improve roommate matching and ensure those who live together are compatible in one way or another. Housing teams can send these questionnaires to college students by email, in the mail, or via an online form builder such as Google Forms. 

Once you have collected your responses, you can start matching roommates at your college accommodation based on their preferences. For example, you might want to place students with similar daily schedules in the same building. 

Best Practices For Crafting a College Roommate Questionnaire

Creating a college roommate questionnaire is fairly easy. However, you should consider these best practices when thinking up questions for your survey to ensure your matching system results in happy students.

1. Clear and Relevant Questions

Asking clear questions can improve room assignment and roommate compatibility. Asking students what time they go to bed and wake up during the week, for example, is more specific than asking them whether they are early birds or night owls. 

Relevant questions are also important. Asking someone about their favorite type of music or sports teams, for instance, might help you gauge their interests. However, these questions won't necessarily improve roommate compatibility. Instead, you could ask students about their favorite sports to play in their free time. Roommates will then have a shared interest they can enjoy together at college. 

Here is a list of questions that might inspire your questionnaire: 

• Does smoking bother you?

• What noise level is acceptable for your living situation?

• How tidy are you?

• How do you feel about overnight guests?

• What is your sleep schedule?

• What extracurricular activities do you enjoy?

• How often will you be coming and going?

2. Inclusivity And Respect

Questionnaires should reflect your college's inclusive environment. For instance, ask students what pronouns they prefer. Alternatively, you can ask students about their religion and whether they want to live with people who share their beliefs.

The best surveys also include questions about accessibility requirements. Students might need a first-floor apartment if they have mobility issues or require light switches and electrical outlets in accessible locations. 

3. Transparency And Honesty

It's important to tell students that you won't be able to fulfill all of their living requests. Even in diverse student populations, it can be difficult to find a roommate match when they have such unique and specific preferences. With full transparency, students can better manage their expectations before moving into your accommodation. 

Even if you satisfy someone's accommodation requests, there's no guarantee they will have a positive campus experience. Just because you place students with shared interests in the same space, misunderstandings can still arise. Being transparent about your room assignment process — and that roommate mismatches can occur — will help people prepare for student life. 

4. Open Roommate Communication

Open roommate communication helps students discuss issues that happen in a shared space, such as problems with loud noises, bills, and cleaning up personal items. That can reduce conflict and ensure everyone in student housing has a positive experience. 

You can ask students specific questions about their communication styles to improve conflict resolution. Those who handle arguments and disagreements in a similar way might be able to overcome issues more successfully. Questions you can ask students include:

• How would you deal with a messy or noisy roommate?

• What is the best way to communicate with a roommate after an argument?

• Do you think weekly meetings with your potential roommates are important?

5. Specificity And Conciseness

Making your questions more concise can reduce workloads for your housing team and result in more successful roommate matches. For example, asking several close-ended questions helps you gather focused responses that are easier to compare. Rather than asking someone what time they go to bed, you could ask whether they prefer to go to bed before or after 11 p.m. 

Similarly, you might want some of your responses to be more specific and less vague. Otherwise, you could misunderstand someone's preferences and find it difficult to match them with the right roommates. Instead of asking students whether they mind living with pets, ask them what types of pets they could share space with. That's because someone might be allergic or dislike a particular type of animal.

Use Advanced Technology To Do the Matching Work For You

The latest technology can help you improve roommate matching and compatibility, reducing hard work for your housing team and ensuring happy residents. A good student housing platform, for example, lets you create rulesets that take into account each student's preferences, requirements, and characteristics. That can make it easier to match students for your accommodation. Say you want to match students with shared religious beliefs in a residence hall. The right student housing solutions will find these individuals and group them together. 

Housing Cloud is a student housing tool that optimizes roommate matches and room assignments. This cloud-based platform is purpose-built with today's technology, supporting your housing team as they welcome new students to your accommodation and improve resident retention. You can also create and control housing application forms and roommate agreements and create custom tags for finding and organizing residents. That way, you can create a more harmonious and satisfying student experience on campus.

Looking for a student housing platform that saves your housing team time and effort? Contact Housing Cloud now for a demo.