113 Fun Questions to Ask a Potential College Roommate
This post is about the best questions to ask your college roommate. Having a list of questions to ask your potential roommate before you live together will help you find an awesome college roommate.
After deciding where to go to college, the most exciting next step is figuring out where to live and who you’re going to live with! For first-year college students, this usually means finding a roommate—or even multiple suitemates!
Moving into a college dorm or apartment with a roommate can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. Sharing a living space with someone you don’t know all that well can lead to amazing friendships and incredible bonding.
Your new roommate is basically your first college friend. You’ll get to know each other as you decorate your dorm room, trek across campus to the dining hall, make late-night cookie runs, and spend hours studying together.
As the year goes on, your roommate will be the person who sees you at your best and your worst. You’ll want to choose a roommate who has the potential to be your new BFF and who won’t drive you crazy in your tiny shared dorm room.
To ensure that you will be able to live together and not drive each other up the way, it’s essential to communicate openly and honestly from the start. To find the right future roomie, you need to ask lots of great questions!
Asking the right questions can help you decide if a prospective roommate is the right match for you, establish common ground, and
How will you pick your freshman year roommate?
Some colleges match roommates completely randomly. Others match roommates based on personality quizzes and housing questionnaires.
Some colleges let students choose their own roommates. You can scroll through potential roommates on your college’s Facebook page, Instagram roommate groups, or your college’s roommate matching site.
If you’re trying to pick the perfect roommate, you’ll need to go beyond just looking at potential roomies’ social media accounts. It’s a good idea to take the time to talk via phone calls or in person to see if you’d make a good match.
Talking through this list of questions to ask a prospective roommate will help you find someone compatible with you!
Why Should You Ask Your New Roommate Questions?
You can learn a lot about a potential roomie by asking them great questions. You can find out:
- what they are passionate about
- What’s most important to them
- What they want to major in
- Why they chose that college
- What they like to do
- How social they are
- If you have common interests
- What their sleep schedule and sleeping habits are like
- If they’re a morning person or a night person
- If their college experience will focus on greek life, academics, or both
Ultimately, you want your dorm room to feel like a safe space, your home-away-from-home.
You are much more likely to feel comfortable in your dorm room if you have things in common with your roommate and feel like you both respect each other’s preferences and needs.
So, asking your potential college roommate questions will help you get a sense of whether the two of you would be compatible living together.
Asking your college roommate questions before you start sharing a dorm room also allows you to talk about how to resolve any conflicts before you actually are roommates.
If you get to pick your roommate, these 113 essential questions to ask potential college roommates will help you find a great match. And if you’re randomly assigned a roommate by your college, these same questions will help you get to know your future roommate before move-in day.
ultimate list of the Best college roommate questions!
113 Questions to ask potential college roommates
1. What kinds of things do you like to do?
2. Where are you from?
3. Do you plan to go home often?
4. Do you think you will get homesick?
5. Do you have siblings?
6. What’s your family like?
7. Do you have pets?
8. When’s your birthday?
9. What’s your favorite color?
10. What’s your favorite show or favorite movie?
11. Have you ever shared a room before?
12. Have you lived away from home before?
13. Do you know anyone else attending this college?
14. Why did you decide to attend this university?
15. What are you most looking forward to for freshman year?
16. What can you not live without that you are absolutely bringing with you to college?
17. Are you an early bird or a night owl? When do you like to wake up and what time do you usually go to sleep?
18. Do you need total darkness or a nightlight to sleep?
19. Do you like to fall asleep to quiet or to music or the TV?
20. Are you a heavy sleeper or a light sleeper?
21. Do you snore or talk in your sleep?
22. Are you a sleepwalker?
23. Do you take naps?
24. How messy or clean are you?
25. How do you feel about dividing chores to keep our room clean? What are your cleaning habits?
26. How clean is clean enough for you? Are you a neat freak?
27. How often do you do your laundry?
28. Are you okay with sharing things like snacks, clothes, a fridge?
29. What things do you not want to share?
30. What temperature do you want a room to be?
31. Are you loud or quiet?
32. Do you listen to music out loud or with headphones?
33. Do you like meeting new people?
34. Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
35. Do you need a lot of alone time?
36. What are your hobbies and will you do them in the room?
37. Do you want to play video games in our room?
38. How long do you take in the bathroom?
39. Do you like to shower in the morning or at night?
40. What do you think you’ll major in?
41. What classes are you taking first semester?
42. What’s your class schedule like?
43. How many hours of class are you taking?
44. What time are your classes—morning, afternoon, or evening?
45. What are your study habits like?
46. Do you prefer to study in your room or at the library?
47. Do you like to study in quiet or with background noise?
48. What was your high school like?
49. What kinds of extracurriculars did you do in high school?
50. What was your favorite class in high school?
51. What extracurricular activities are you interested in?
52. What clubs will you join?
53. What do you like to do when you have free time?
54. Do you plan an instrument?
55. Do you like outdoorsy activities?
56. Do you play any sports for fun?
57. Will you play on a college sports team?
58. Do you like going to sports games?
59. Do you like to go to the gym?
60. What’s your idea of a fun Friday night?
61. What do you like to do on weekends?
62. What kind of music do you like?
63. What movies and shows do you like?
64. What’s your favorite book?
65. Do you plan on partying?
66. Do you drink?
67. Do you smoke or vape?
68. Are you planning to rush a sorority/fraternity?
69. Do you know which sorority/frat you want to join? Why?
70. Do you want to study abroad?
71. Do you like to travel?
72. Are you going to work during college?
73. What are your political views?
74. Are your religious views important to you?
75. What qualities are you looking for in a roommate?
76. Are you bringing a car to campus?
77. What’s your overall style?
78. How do you want to use the dorm room? (Launch pad, hangout space, study area?)
79. Do you want a coordinated dorm room look, or do you want us each to personalize our own half of the room?
80. What’s your vision for decorating our shared space?
81. Have you already purchased any dorm things?
82. Are you willing to split the cost of a rug, mini fridge, microwave, etc., for the dorm room?
83. What’s your budget for decorating the dorm room?
84. Do you know which dorm you want to live in? (If your college lets you choose!)
85. Do you have a preference for what side of the room you get?
86. How do you feel about having guests over?
87. Are you currently in a relationship?
88. Do you plan to have overnight guests in our dorm room?
89. How do you feel about guests staying overnight in our dorm room?
90. How do you feel about someone of the opposite gender staying overnight in our dorm room?
91. How do you feel about having a partner stay overnight?
92. Is there a limit on how many nights someone could stay over in a week?
93. Do you care if we have people in our room during the day?
94. How do you handle stress?
95. How have you resolved conflict with friends in the past?
96. How do you think we should handle disagreements?
97. What’s your communication style? (Confrontational or passive aggressive?)
98. Do you want to create a written roommate contract?
99. What kind of food do you like the most? What are your favorite foods?
100. What are your favorite snacks?
101. What’s your go-to coffee or tea order?
102. Do you have food allergies or dietary restrictions?
103. Are you allergic to anything else?
104. Do you have any health concerns I should know about?
105. What do you have strong feelings about?
106. What’s most important to you?
107. What are your pet peeves?
108. What are your career goals? What’s your dream job?
109. What do you want your future to look like?
110. What would be a deal breaker about living together?
111. Are there any rules or personal boundaries you want to set before we move in together?
112. What’s the most important thing I should know about you?
113. What else do you want to know about me?
Final thoughts on the best questions to ask a potential college roommate
Asking lots of questions can help you get to know a potential roommate before you share a dorm room with them. It’s important that you and your roommate have things in common and know what’s important to each other.
If you can meet up before you decide to live together, go for it! It’s so much easier to ask a potential college roommate questions when you’re hanging out together IRL.
Check out this post for more tips on choosing a great freshman year college roommate!
You may or may not end up being best friends with your new roommate. You don’t even have to see eye-to-eye on each of your answers to these questions for college roommates. You just have to be able to live with each other’s answers.
This list of questions to ask a potential roommate will help you start a conversation about your expectations for living together before your move-in date arrives. By getting to know each other and talking about what’s most important to you, you and your roommate will get off to a great start!
