Many colleges choose roommates in common ways, such as giving out a questionnaire and having you answer personality questions, but some take a more unique approach and actually handpick roommates. If you are planning on living in dorms, make sure that you are looking into how your college is going to pick roommates and see what your options are.

The most common way to match roommates is the college sends out a questionnaire over email or through the mail that asks questions like: “How much sleep do you need?” “Do you smoke?” “How clean are you?” Then, they take your answers, decide what person has similar qualities, and badda bing, badda boom, you have a new dorm mate! Another common way of getting a roommate is requesting one, so if you and a friend are going to the same college and want to room together, be sure to investigate how to make that happen. There are however, colleges out there that have a more…unique way of doing things.

For example, at Stanford University, in Stanford, California, the roommates are handpicked. They have one or two students get together and go through the freshmen, mixing and matching until they find the best match for everyone. The people chosen have to do some really in depth thinking into the dorm mate decisions. They have to look at your multiple choice test, and read the essay that is assigned. By using those two instruments, the college-matching dream-team matches your personalities. What they try to do is allow the roommates to be different enough to learn from each other, yet similar enough to get along. If the process doesn’t seem hard already, the two people are also required to place where you are in the dorm complexes! The dream-team completes this task very strategically. One of the things they do is place social people farther from the bathrooms, so they might strike up a conversation on their way there. How clever. While the dictators of dorm mates place all of the freshmen into dorms, they admit to barely reading the names, which is odd considering they learn so much about the person. The main rule to Stanford’s matching game is that you can’t meet your roommate until move-in day (yes, that does include Facebook stalking.) This is so you don’t get a false image of your new roommate and it helps to fight prejudice.

A little closer to home is the University of Colorado-Boulder. CU Boulder uses a program called “My Room 2.0.” Each person signs on and completes a profile that covers things like: how you feel about visitors, how much time you need to study, your cleanliness, and how you give feedback… to name just a few. The program then considers all of these factors and matches you with a roommate. After the program assigns you to a roommate, it creates a general roommate agreement based on the collective roommate profiles. After all of this is done, you have a set roommate and it is up to you to educate yourself on the protocol and handbook of being a resident on the CU Boulder campus.

These two ways seem like excellent ways to find the perfect match, and most students do, but nothing is a hundred percent. If you and your roommate don’t get along, you could request a roommate change, but most colleges only do that in dire circumstances. In order to help you get along with your future roommate, here are some tips:

First, communication is key. When you live with someone for the first time it can take some getting used to. The best way to deal with the newness of it all is communication. Talk about anything that makes you uncomfortable, that bothers you, and really anything that you think can be an issue. It would be better to have momentary awkwardness than constant tension between you two. Remember, you are stuck with that person.

Another important thing in keeping the peace with your roommate is sleeping and studying time. Get to know when your roommate goes to sleep and when they wake up. Since sleeping is a question on most roommate “evaluations”, it shouldn’t be too big of an issue. You should find out when your roommate likes to study and how they like to study. If they like complete silence and you like to listen to music while studying, the two of you will have to create a game plan on how to deal with that.

Finally, create some visitor ground rules. How do you feel about overnight visitor? What about the other gender? It is best to find these things out before the visitor actually arrives. It’ll save you from some awkward moments. You could also establish a time frame when a visitor is allowed, because if it is finals week and your roommate invites someone over to have a “study group”, you might be stuck trying to study while having to listen to distractions.

If you decide you want to live on campus in dorms, take a look at how the school decides who rooms with whom, and also follow the quick tips listed above. They might be very important when it comes to talking to your roommate. College is a time to explore new people, be exposed to new things, and it is a time to discover yourself. When in college, take the time to study, but also take the time to know who exactly you are living with. It could make college even easier and more fun.