Being a freshman on campus can be quite terrifying. You’ve just moved to brand new place, and you don’t know anyone - that’s why your freshman roommate is so important. Sooner or later, you branch out and room with your best friends, but sometimes it doesn’t work out the way you want it to. AdmitSee members know better anyone:
From our office intern, Sylvia:
I think I had it lucky compared to most other college students who have way worse stories. But, something that comes to mind repeatedly when thinking about my worst college roommate experience was in my 3rd year at USF. I had just moved out of the dorm and into an apartment two blocks away from school with 3 of my friends. We were finally “real” adults, no more café points to rely on and no one to wash our dirty dishes. To a lightweight germ-o-phobe like me, it turned into a nightmare. Two of my housemates bought groceries or take out every week but never finished them and left everything to mold in the fridge, for weeks or months. When it came time to clean the fridge out at the end of the year, I found food that expired seven months ago and food that I wasn’t sure if it was originally meat, rice, or mushed blueberries. My other housemate never cleaned the dishes properly, leaving bits of dried food on the dishes in the cupboard. Once, I even found a piece of raw meat, on the floor.
From our beautiful in-office designer, Julia:
Sophomore year at UCSB, my roommate was a girl I lived with in the freshman dorms. We chose to share a studio apartment, just the two of us in one big bedroom with a kitchen and a bathroom. Our issues started early on - she didn’t take out the trash, vacuum, sweep, or wipe the counters a single time that year! I had no idea she was such a messy lady - when we lived together in the dorms, our room was always cleaned by university staff.
She’d often eat my food without asking. I only really had the guts to confront her once, when she demolished an entire jar of peanut butter I’d just purchased that week. When I asked her about it, she offered to trade me a handful of miniature peanut butter cups in exchange. (While not an adequate refund, this was certainly a sweet attempt at civility.) She also had an odd habit of leaving seemingly random objects around the apartment. I’d come home to find a large granite rock in the middle of the bedroom, a broken bicycle in our kitchen, a cheese grater on her bed. I repeat, she left our only cheese grater lying on her bed for several days. What strange activity could lead her to forget it there, I don’t want to imagine. Needless to say, when our lease ended we went our separate ways.
Lesson to freshman seeking roommates: Before choosing to live with someone, really be thorough in making sure they don’t have some kind of cheese fetish.
From one of our co-founders, Lydia:
I lived in the Phi Mu sorority house my sophomore year at Johns Hopkins. In general, it was a great group of girls and you couldn’t beat the location. But… 20 girls under one roof was intense to say the least. One housemate was particularly territorial and passive aggressive. She hated when guests used our first floor bathroom and lounge. She covered every room with poster board signs.
This escalated to many other things she wanted to bring our “attention” to, and eventually, we had to put up signs of our own saying, “ATTENTION: These signs are not acceptable.”
From our other co-founder, Stephanie:
I moved in with a gay designer post-Duke. We got along really well and I thought he would be a drama-free roommate to have. That is, until he started to hit on me. Turns out he wasn’t gay.
Whether you’re just starting your search or you’re looking for help applying, it’s never too early to make the college application process easier. Search to find students like you or contact a mentor for help with the admissions process so you can narrow down your choices and get a head start.
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