Finding an NDSU roommate is easy with the My College Roomie online portal.
Students at NDSU can find a roommate with similar interests well in advance of arriving on campus.
My College Roomie is a roommate matching software used by NDSU that allows incoming, first-year and transfer students to find the most compatible roommate. Students create a profile and complete a questionnaire to determine similar interests with other students who also have completed the process.
“I do think My College Roomie helped smooth the transition to living in a dorm and having a roommate,” said Ruth Erickson, an NDSU freshman from Kenyon, Minnesota. “I felt like I got a good feel for people’s personalities on there, and it took a lot of stress off of me by calculating who I’d get along with by my own answers to the questionnaire.”
The questionnaire includes questions about how outgoing you are, how you view your level of neatness, how you deal with conflict and how often you will be involved in campus activities. All responses include a Likert scale where respondents can decide where they fit best between the two extremes.
“It's very helpful to students because it allows students to engage in ways they are accustomed to. Uploading a photo, completing a profile, sending direct messages – all of these things are commonly used in social media environments, so students are used to interacting with others in this way,” said Jason Medders, the associate director of Residence Life Operations. “Allowing them to select their own roommates gives them more control over the overall housing experience, and it also lets them engage with other NDSU students prior to coming to campus. Upon arrival, their friend group and peer network is already partially established.”
Medders said over 2,100 students used MCR during the last application and room selection cycle.
After completing the questionnaire, students are able to look at other profiles and see their percentage of compatibility. Messages can be sent to other compatible student participants to further connect and determine if they would like to be roommates. Roommate requests are managed in the program.
Erickson said she gets along well with her roommate and they hang out when classes aren’t in session.
“The algorithm is pretty legit, and the fact that you can see where people are from is another bonus,” she said. “My roommate and I both live about five and a half hours from Fargo, and it was important to me to live with someone who I could meet up with during the summer before school without using up a whole tank of gas.”
New incoming students can create their profile, complete the questionnaire and request a roommate beginning in December. Roommate assignments are made in March.
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