As seniors start graduation season, they have college on their mind. Some crucial parts of any college experience is where a student lives and who they room with. Seniors are starting the roommate search process, or have already completed it, and many have strong feelings on how to find a roommate.

The first way to find a roommate is simply through the school. Many students go with the random potluck and just let the school decide for them. However, this process has increasingly lost its appeal in the age of social media. There are so many chances of getting a horrible or incompatible roommate that not many people chose this route. The main reason to go potluck is generally that the student was late to the roommate search and wasn’t able to find one in time for room selections.

A more popular route is through the use of sites designed to match available roommates. With sites like Roomsurf and weroomies, the process has become more like a dating website with students perfecting their bios and profile pictures in addition to filling out surveys on their habits such as morning or night person and how clean they keep their rooms. It is very easy to use these sites because they show the users the most compatible match based on the surveys taken when they sign up. These sites allow for messaging between users and show a user’s survey result and bios.

The main downfall of these sites is that the majority of them require a payment to use which many students view as a waste of money when there are free options to find a roommate.

A good, free and online way to find a roommate is through forums. Facebook, Instagram and GroupMe typically have a class page where freshmen post little ads that generally include character traits, majors, plans on rushing, their hometown and pictures of themselves. Many then direct message, text or talk over GroupMe until they find a roommate. Forums are a popular option because they are free and let potential roomies easily look at their prospective partner.

A classic way is through personal connections. Friends or family who know someone going to the same college in the same year sometimes set up students to live together. These are typically agreed upon early in the year before the majority of students even start looking for a roommate. This is a very easy way to find a roommate that generally has the same friend or family friend group. However, the senior isn’t able to find a perfect roommate for themselves.

A perfect roommate is hard to find. They need to have compatible character traits and the same interests in addition to having a similar lifestyle. Night owls and early birds generally don’t mix, nor do smokers and non-smokers or the super religious with the atheist. Most people typically won’t find a perfect roommate, but will be compatible enough to get along and respect each other’s space.