The majority of rooms on campus are doubles, meaning that the majority of students at Beloit College have roommates. The Residence Life staff uses the information provided by incoming students to try and best match students with their roommate(s).

Learning Who Your Roommate Will Be

New students can expect to receive their housing and roommate assignment by mid-July. We recommend reaching out during the summer and start getting to know one another to make the actual move-in and transition easier.  You should also work out who will be bringing appliances: you don’t need two microwaves, do you?

Setting Yourselves Up for Success

A first step in building and maintaining a good roommate relationship is setting up boundaries and open communication lines.  There are many questions students often don’t think about when first moving in which can lead to conflict:

• Which of our belongings are we willing to share with each other?
• What is our definitions of “quiet” for studying?  For sleeping?
• How will we keep our space clean?  Who is responsible for what chores?
• When will we allow guests and visitors? For what purposes?

To help roommates discuss their living arrangements and set guidelines, we have compiled these questions (and more) into a Roommate Agreement Form. 

We recommend all new roommates complete this exercise:

1. On your own, read through the form and answer each of the questions.
2. Come together and share your answers.  For any differences, discuss and find an arrangement that works best of your both of you.

It’s not always easy to set limits, so please don’t be afraid to ask for help.  Resident Assistants and Residence Life Coordinators have training in mediation and are willing to help in any way possible to improve your roommate relationship.

Resolving Conflict

If problems between roommates arise during the school year, a completed Roommate Agreement Form can help sort out the problem by returning to the arrangements you’ve agreed to previously. Even if a form has not been filled out, it can still be a useful tool in the moment to resolve a difficult situation by creating new guidelines.

If the roommates are unable to resolve a situation themselves, they should reach out to their Resident Assistant to help mediate, listen, counsel and help try and find a solution.