Amherst Lifestyle

Secret Behind the Sorting

Ever wonder how you ended up with your really awesome (or fairly horrible) freshman year roommate? Amherst recently released an article giving a behind the scenes look at how they pair 400 random kids up, and from the sounds of it, it’s, well, pretty random. It’s also done at the last minute – I remember finding out who my roommate would be and what room I would live in about 4 days before going to college (after going crazy all summer wondering). Fortunately for me, it worked out, and my roomie and I are still friends. The same could be said in general for most freshmen. There are the few unlucky ones though. One teammates’ roomie ran away. Another friend had to endure a year with someone who never showered/cleaned…ever. A third lived with a girl who was pretty much nocturnal and my friend had to sleep with the light on most nights. In general, most people stick it out, learn to live with whatever weird or annoying habits the other roomie has and breathe a sigh of relief when they score singles in the next year’s room draw (and tell their bad-roommate stories for the next 3 years). Perhaps Amherst has as good a system as it gets for this particular aspect of Res Life (NOT, however, for commencement week workers), perhaps not. But at least now we know how it all happens – the deans throw us together in a shuffle and hope for the best.