It's the summer before your freshman fall and the admissions office is inundating you with brochures, newsletters and countless forms that you separate into piles of "important" and "do later." Among the "important" piles is the roommate application. The form by which the College will match you up with your soul mate, the person who will immediately understand your hopes and dreams and will bind you two in a lasting friendship transcending the brief span of your collegiate years.... yeah, right.
The Dartmouth roommate application consists of four general questions which if matched correctly will at best avoid a few of the worst roommate complaints and in most cases assures nothing at all.
Let's begin by analyzing a situation where the College does actually take the time to match the students answers correctly. Question one, "Do you smoke?" Now one would think this is a fairly simple and straight forward question but much to the chagrin of many roommates it is not. For example, many students seem to use this question as an opportunity to try and quit smoking. The logic of the student seems to follows this pattern "Well, I smoke now but if I say that I don't smoke than that means I'll have to quit this summer and once I actually try to quit it'll be no problem, right?" Ask their non-smoking roommates how well it worked and you my find a flaw in this logic.
Question two, "Do you stay up late or go to bed early?" Now when I read this question I saw it as "Do you party or do you not?" others saw it as "Do you stay up until all hours of the night studying or do you not?" Two people might answer yes to the question but I'd be doubtful that it assured any type of compatibility. Third question, "Are you messy or neat?" For me I found this question to be a double edged-sword. I could have answered I'm more messy than neat and have gotten a complete slob who believed you only saw the floor on the first and last day of every term so instead I put more neat than messy and was paired with a roommate who won the award for the neatest room at her boarding school.
The last question is, "Do you study to music?" Now my advice to anyone filling out this form would be to say no unless it is absolutely essential that you hear music while studying because if you say yes, that means your roommate also said yes but the problem is neither one of you specified as to what kind of music you said yes to and you could very well find yourself trying to drown out a technosized version of sounds of the rainforest or the song Lady in Red being played over and over and over again until you think you're going to crack.
Because of this obviously ineffective way of matching people up I have devised my own set of questions to add to the roommate application form that address some additional issues that can cause roommate tension.
Question one, "Do you believe your dirty dishes should double as bacteria cultures?"
Question two, "How often do you shower and do you believe time in a pool can be used as a substitute for a shower?"
Question three, "Does excessive alcohol impair your bladder control?"
Question four, " You come back at 1 a.m. on a Friday night to find the door locked, do you assume your roommate's not home or your roommate's not alone?"
Question five, " Do you consider holding the cigarette out the window not smoking in the room?"
Question six, "Do you own fewer than four CDs and do any of them feature anything that could be grouped under the heading of lite sounds?"
Question seven, "Do you believe your body is simply a container?"
And finally, "Would you ever consider hacking your roommate to death with a knife? (applies only to Harvard transfer students)"
Obviously these added questions won't solve all problems having a roommate can produce. Being suddenly forced to live in close quarters with a complete stranger is bound to cause some tension but with patience and ingenuity you can turn those roommate fights into subject material for your next editorial.
