Roommates and Best Practices

Having a roommate(s) can play a big part in your college life and beyond. Roommates often become life-long friends. With the right roommate, you can create a supportive and fun living environment that will enhance your academic journey.

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Finding a Roommate

Whether you prefer a familiar roommate or someone with shared interests, the next step is getting to know each other.

 

Before agreeing to become roommates, schedule a meaningful conversation and assess if their preferences and lifestyle match yours.

• Discuss lifestyles, study habits, hobbies, daily routines, sleep schedules, and cleanliness practices
• Imagine living together in the space provided.
• Trust your instincts: sometimes, you’ll sense a connection.

Next, discuss and set clear boundaries, preferences and expectations to help create a positive living experience. Examples include the following:

• Share responsibilities. How will you divide chores, such as cleaning, cooking, or taking out the trash?
• Guest and privacy. Discuss preferences for having visitors and respecting each other's personal space.
• Shared cost. Clarify contributions to shared costs such as cleaning supplies. 
• Conflict resolution. Talk about how you will address disagreements to maintain a healthy relationship. See entry below.

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Undergraduate Halls 

• Housing Registration's Roommate Questionnaire
  • The first step to finding a roommate is to complete the roommate questionnaire as part of housing registration (via OSU Housing Portal) and to make it searchable by other residents. The questionnaire is a quick overview of you—your study habits, sleep schedule, cleanliness preferences and so forth.
  • Be sure to provide a thoughtful description of yourself in the space provided. 
  • You can customize your search to find others who share the traits you are most interested in.
• If you can't find your roommate to-be in the OSU Housing Portal
  • If you know that your roommate has completed their registration, and you can't find their profile, you should double-check the following:
    • Be sure your genders are the same on the personal profile section.
    • Toggle on the "to be searchable" option on roommate questionnaire tab. 
• Room Transfers
  • Residents might need to relocate during the academic year for various reasons.
  • To understand the specific dates and policies regarding room changes or transfers, visit Request to Change/Transfer Room.

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Conflict Resolution

• Roommate Agreements
  • In fostering a healthy roommate relationship, effective and open communication is vital. To aid this, Housing and Residential Life provides a roommate agreement program for residents.
  • These agreements empower roommates to establish boundaries, preferences, and expectations upfront. Facilitated by a community mentor or apartment assistants these formal documents can be viewed and adjusted by all parties as necessary.