An email from an overzealous first-year student at UCLA to her future roommates has gone viral recently, prompting a great deal of criticism. Coverage of the letter has ranged from commentary from fellow UCLA students to snide retellings of the virtual interactions between the three roommates, all neglecting to question how these girls — who are all seemingly opposite in personality — had been assigned to live together. Stories like these occur much too often and are caused by universities using poorly assembled personality surveys for the roommate matching process. With NYU as one of the greatest offenders, the question remains as to why many colleges across the nation have yet to implement a more thorough selection system.

The NYU roommate pairing process currently consists of a meager set of four lifestyle questions on subjects of cleanliness, sleeping habits and likely number of frequent guests. Fortunately for first-years, the university has recognized how bare-bones this approach is, but unfortunately, they justify the sparse nature of these compatibility tests by citing their unimportance. NYU claims that the lifestyle questionnaire is the least important component in the selection process, and that geographical diversity is the highest. The importance of improving the roommate assignment process has especially increased since 2013, when NYU changed the housing policy to require that all freshmen be assigned roommates through the housing system, therefore making it impossible for students to request specific roommates on their own. In its devotion to promote global understanding, an institution-wide value that contributes to the university’s high collegiate and commercial standing, NYU seems to have forgotten about the health and well-being of its students.

NYU boasts the highest number of international students in the U.S., making it impossible to attend the university without expanding your global network. The university’s considerable geographic diversity can be seen in almost every aspect of student life, from clubs to classes, so why then is it necessary to force such diversity in a student’s on-campus home? Simply placing students in a room with a goal of diversity does not guarantee that they are going to get along or live together amicably; if a student doesn’t maintain some form of appreciation or respect for their roommate then there is no chance that either one’s immersion in global diversity will proceed as NYU intends. Even further, there is a significant chance that the student will experience additional stressors and grief due to this mismatch, which can threaten performance in school and harm their overall university experience.
Several online roommate matching systems have already been developed that emphasize actual compatibility between students. If NYU chose to employ one of these systems, our reputation of being a globally diverse campus would not falter in the slightest. Region is not reflective of personality and the use of a well-crafted compatibility test would not lead to housing assignments that lack in diversity. On the contrary, such a program would have the potential to seriously benefit the experiences of our first-year students.

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Email Emma Rudd at [email protected].