Senior Sara Castellanos took a chance with her living situation and decided to room with someone she didn’t know.
Castellanos enjoys meeting new people and making friends, but her new roommate wasn’t what she expected.
“We were from two different sections of Ohio; I was from the country and she was from the city,” she said. “Our personalities clashed.”
To avoid situations like Castellanos’s, some apartment complexes in Bowling Green take the extra time to help students find their last roommate or two.
Trent Goodwin, assistant manager at Falcon’s Pointe, said the company offers roommate matching for students who cannot find roommates.
“It all begins with a simple roommate matching form, but it gets in-depth, going all the way down to smoking preferences, drinking preferences, hobbies, interests and what time you go to bed at night,” he said.
Unlike some other properties that use a computer program to generate the results, Goodwin sits down and hand picks the roommates.
“Even if it’s only a couple of preferences that can be met, we do the best we can,” he said.
Aaron Higbee, property manager at Copper Beech, said when the company has people looking for roommates it has multiple ways for people to get in contact.
“We do have a list up here at the office if anybody is having trouble finding roommates or doesn’t have anywhere to start,” he said. “If a transfer student comes in looking for housing we can get them the names and contact numbers of people to see if anything blossoms from there.”
Junior Kerri Gangwer said she thinks using roommate matching could be good or bad.
“It has the potential to work, but you never know; it could blow up in your face,” she said.
One misconception is that students who have random roommates have more problems in general, Goodwin said.
“We actually have more conflicts with people who request each other than those who we do random placements,” Goodwin said.
Each year at Falcon’s Pointe there are normally five or fewer cases when renters come in with complaints, Goodwin said.
At Copper Beech, Higbee said they will usually only have one real roommate problem per year.
Many students are concerned about being placed with random roommates, but Goodwin said they should not be nervous.
“Coming from a personal standpoint, I did it, I actually moved to Falcon’s Pointe myself about five years back, and I was a random who moved in with other [randoms] and it worked out very well,” Goodwin said.
Despite not always getting along with her roommate, Castellanos said she would have another random roommate.
“It gives me a chance to meet new people,” she said.
For students who are concerned about their living situation, Castellanos gave one piece of advice.
“For your first year go random, after that find someone you can get along with,” she said.
