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Moving off to college is an extremely stressful venture. Not only is it stressful to put in college applications, fill out student loan paperwork, and, if you get acceptance letters back from more than one college, decide which one you’ll actually do the best at, but then you also have to decide the best way to live near your new college. What are the best restaurants to eat at? Where are the good neighborhoods, and where are the shady neighborhoods? What’s the campus policy on off-campus housing anyway?
These are all extremely important questions that you’ll have to answer, but one of the most important ones is what your living situation will be. If you do decide to live off-campus, it’s a great idea to have a roommate that you can share rent costs with — after all, the “broke college student” stereotype isn’t exactly a myth. But how do you find a roommate that you’ll actually like hanging out with in your apartment? Here are the five best ways to do it.
Ask for Recommendations
If you’re going to a college that’s relatively close to where you went to high school, or you already have friends near the area you’re moving, they might be able to point you to some location-specific groups that will be able to help you find a roommate. It’s also likely they’ll probably know some people looking for roommates, so they might be able to hook you up, or at least mention your name to their roommate-searching friends. It might not be the best way to do it, but it’s worth a shot.
Check for Off-Campus Housing Programs
If your college doesn’t require on-campus housing, it’s more than likely they’ll still want to provide other ways for college students to build camaraderie. That’s why they might be able to help you with off-campus housing in one way or another. They may have a kind of roster that you can sign up for and find other students looking for roommates, they may be able to help you with rent in certain places where lots of college students congregate, or they might just be able to direct you to some places where you can ask around for help.
Try Facebook Groups
Most colleges have some sort of Facebook group for students, and if there’s no official one, it’s likely a student has started one and gotten a pretty decent number of other students to join. Especially in the first year, there are plenty of freshmen looking to get a roommate so they can split rent, which means these groups are great for finding a potential roommate. Some colleges may even have a Facebook group specifically for seeking out roommates. Doing a quick search never hurt anybody!
Look Into Roommate-Matching Websites
There are plenty of websites and apps geared specifically toward people looking for roommates. You can search most of them by a variety of different criteria, including gender, age, price cap, and whether they have any pets. Most of them also let you talk to potential roommates before you do anything, which is great if you want to get to know them a little bit before you decide whether or not you’d like to share an apartment for over a year. While meeting a roommate randomly over an app may seem a little shady, most of them have great vetting processes, and are very concerned about their users’ safety. It’s a great way to reach out a little more.
Find an Apartment First
If you really want to have a leg up on your roommate competition, consider finding a great apartment for a great price near your school first. It seems like an impossible task, but actually you can find the apartment you need much more easily than you’d think. ForRent.com lets you find apartments near your school, listed by all kinds of criteria. You can search for pet-friendly apartments or apartments in a certain price range, as well as many other things that could be important to you. Even better, you don’t have to worry about figuring out how to settle down — ForRent.com even has tips and tricks on how to make your apartment a little more like home. Finding that apartment could be the difference between getting a roommate easily and having to look much harder.
Splitting the cost of an apartment with a roommate is a great way to save some money through your college years, but actually finding that roommate can feel like an impossible task. With so many ways to find a roommate that you probably haven’t thought about, you can cut down on the stress and time it takes to find a roommate, and just focus on the amazing experience associated with going to college.
