Posts tagged roommate

Very shortly (i.e. sometime in mid May!) you’ll get an email with lots of info, forms, and stuff to fill out. Included in there is a housing form where you jot down lifestyle specifics such as when you go to bed/get up, what music you love, what music you hate, how messy you keep your space, things like that. If I remember right I think I put down I’m an early to bed, early to rise, extremely tidy, person who can only sleep in complete darkness and that instead of music I obsessively listen to NPR. Yes I am a total nerd. 

Anyways, after gathering all this info the office of student life will pair you with a roommate they think you are compatible with and then a housing community where you seem to fit! Hope this helps!

-Selina ‘15

Also for your enjoyment… 

It is true, but only if you request it. What I mean is that you will not be placed with a guy if you are a girl unless you specifically choose to. I live with a guy but I was placed with girl (fellow intern and all around lovely lady Julia Hankin) and then ended up deciding to move in with guy. We do have communal co-ed bathrooms, but each shower is private, behind a curtain and a door so, not to fret. 

-Glennis

Yes. There are six quads - all in the 70s houses - that are four-person rooms. Having lived in one myself, I can say that they are absolutely massive and perfectly suitable for a four-person living situation. The 70s houses also have what are commonly referred to as the upstairs quads, which are four separate rooms that converge around a shared common room. As far as I know, freshmen aren’t placed into these quads, so it’s a safe bet that if you’re placed in a quad it will be one of the downstairs ‘studio’ quads.

-Evan ‘13

To be honest, I’m not sure where we’d find the housing questionnaire from this past year or whether or not it changes a bunch from year to year. I think I can give you an idea of how they match you up, though.

Basically, they ask you questions like:

• When do you go to bed/wake up?
• How important is cleanliness to you?
• What kind of music do you like/dislike?
• What is most important to you in a roommate/house?

And then you’re also (if I remember correctly) given the opportunity to write in some sort of summary of yourself in order to give a sense of your personality and how you relate things. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the questions they ask, but I’m fairly sure it’s mostly correct, so.

Essentially it’s a pretty comprehensive survey and I think from what I’ve seen that people who are honest and thorough in their answers get placed in living situations that work out really well for them. I hope this helps give a sense of how the housing process works!

-Evan ‘13

The word from Student Life is sometime in mid-July, barring any sorta delays. So, probably not for at least another week or two. Just a heads-up, though: in Admissions, I/we only know as much about housing/roommates/classes as the incoming freshmen do, so we will probably never be a great resource to ask about things like that.

Your best bet (assuming that you’re an incoming freshman) for that kind of information is either to ask around on the Class of 2016 Facebook group or call the office of Student Life at (802)-440-4330. I’d say give it another couple of weeks before you start making phone calls though - it’ll all be worth it, I promise.

-Evan ‘13

Hey there! Glad you found us.

So, first of all, all our ‘houses’ are technically dorms. They can each house roughly 35 students each, and they are all maintained and cleaned by the College. The reason I think you might have been confused is that most students typically refer to the dorms as houses - they look and feel less institutional and more home-y, so it’s basically just semantics. But yes! Houses = Dorms, in Bennington parlance.

Roommates are chosen and placed by Student Life on the basis of a housing survey that asks questions like: ‘when do you go to bed/wake up?’ ‘what music/movies do you like/dislike?’ ‘what are you looking for in a house/roommate?’ I always say it’s kind of like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter, honestly. No one knows for sure whether it’s an art or a science. What’s cool is that each house has its own personality that forms from the community living in it, which results in residents taking a lot of pride in the house they live in.

Finally, girls and guys are not roomed together by default. While it is totally fine to reserve a room with a member of the opposite sex, Student Life doesn’t do it randomly; you have to specifically request a roommate of the opposite gender.

Hope this helped!

-Evan ‘13

I was hoping for a roommate who wanted to be friendly, but not best friends, who would eat with me, but not want to spend all of our time together, who would have the same sleeping and waking hours, and who would like the same music. 

Did I end up with this fantasy roommate? No. I had three roommates who were amazing, but totally different from what I expected. I lived in a quad for my first term, which was shocking but pretty awesome. We ate together, usually not as a whole group, so that fit my dream, but we ended up being much closer than I anticipated before meeting them. Our sleeping/waking hours were not super similar, but we were respectful in the room and would ask the others to stop dancing, skyping, or talking if one or more of us wanted to sleep.

And wehad totally similar music tastes, bringing new music to the others constantly. One introduced us to Bombay Bicycle Club (now one of my favorite bands), and another introduced us to an array of Japanese rap. 

In terms of how you end up with this mysterious person, the dean of students matches you with a roommate based on the roommate forms you fill out. This means you will likely be matched with someone who is what you hoped for or different in a good way. If not, you can always go to Student Life to talk about your roommate situation.

Hope all of this helps!

-Kate D