Student affairs/higher education is continually incorporating new Mobile Applications into the industry. Over the last few years, there has been an increase in amount of students wanting to find their roommate match or find a friend to live with for on-campus housing. These students do not want a “random” roommate and would rather get to know them before moving in. In the past, many colleges and universities would place students with a roommate and that was who they would live with.
At the University that I work at, we allow students to put requests in if they would like to live with another student. Although we do not guarantee the request, we do take the time to review the requests and see what we can do. Recently, we have heard a lot from the students that they are going on different mobile applications to find a roommate. It is no longer them requesting to live with someone that they know from home, but instead someone that they have found on a mobile application.
One of the mobile applications that the students have been using is RoomSync. RoomSync links with Facebook and allows for students to find someone to live with and then they can also see each other’s Facebook pages to see what that person is like. RoomSync searches through Facebook profiles of those that are signed up for the mobile application and provides a list of those that might be compatible with each other. The students are able to reach out to each other through Facebook and also through email.
There is also a way for users of RoomSync to interact with other members. This isn’t just pushing a button and instantly finding a roommate, they are able to interact with each other and see if they share any common interests and kind of get to know each other before requesting each other. Students are able to access this from their computers and also from mobile devices. This allows for the quick, easy, and convenience that college students today are looking for. They are not required to be sitting down at their computer and can find a roommate while on the go.
This is something that has been successful for students because they are able to know who their roommate is going to be before showing up for move-in day. Many students these days do not like the unknown which would be the “random” roommate. This application is a great way to find someone with common interests and start conversations to see if it is something that will work out.
http://www.roomsync.com/heh—how-it-works.aspx
On The Road To A Degree With Social Media 
This is so cool! Are upcoming students able to submit the requests from the application directly to the college or university they plan to attend? That might be a good way to submit the requests so the university can see how comparable the requesting students are. It might also help out the university with what questions they ask on questionnaires for housing.
At this time, our University does not have connections with sites like this. The students can meet and decide that they are compatible and want to be roommates, and then they notify us that they would like to live together. We take requests from students who would like to live together and try to put them together. Although it would be great if this site was linked to the University since it would save the students the extra step of then having to put the request in, it isn’t at this time.
RoomSync app gives many students an opportunity for an interaction and establishing long time relations. It is very beneficial that this app syncs with Facebook and will be nice if this platform can collaborate with Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest . This way students will be able to share even more common interests and get to know each other even better.
Thanks for sharing!
I really liked reading your blog and learning about the mobile application that has been introduced to students in order to find their room mate or find a room mate that has the same interests as them. That was always one of my fears of living on campus for college was being paired up with someone that I would not connect with. So I guess if they had an app like that when I wan in undergrad I probably would have had the normal college life and lived on campus. Do you think that this app could cause problems within the university, is there a special setting to make sure that everyone is truly a student of that college or a prospect student of the college you are going to?
Currently, not all universities have started using this application. Many students go on this site and find a roommate, and then have to notify the university that they will be attending that they found someone that they would like to live with. I know that this causes many problems at this time since they are not linked and it is an extra step for the students. Sometimes the students don’t think that they need to pass along the roommate information and they think that we just know what they found. Hopefully within the next few years this can be incorporated into many universities and be linked to make it easier for all.