I mean I hope I have enough sway with her that she'll listen to me, but college is hard enough without adding that into it. I lived with a gay roomate when I was in my 20's and that was fine... but any sitch where there is sexual tension is just an unnecessary distraction.

First and only boyfriend I ever lived with was DH. Not that I was a prudey little Victorian or anything, I just didn't want some guy around if it was a sweatpants and Ben and Jerry's night. Also, learning to live on your own or with a roommate is a rite of passage isn't it?

I lived with 4 guys (in a condo) in college, and had a great (totally non-sexual) time.  And I got to meet some fun foreign students (2 from the Czech Republic and one from Japan).

So yeah, if they wanted to, I can't say I'd have a problem.

I'd probably not allow it freshman year.  After a year on campus, though, I'd expect them to make their own decisions.  Most students don't choose this option.

If you say you are a lesbian or a gay man, you can room
with another gay student of the opposite sex!!

Far as I know my daughters straight..but to tell you the truth I don't care...

Ugh. No. Sharing one of those tiny cinderblock cells with a guy.  NO THANKS!

It was bad enough that every other room was guys/girls/guys/girls, although it did facilitate hooking up and dating and all that, not sure if that is a good thing or not.  

Since it's voluntary, I don't have any problem with it.

I have had male housemates, no problem.  We didn't share a room, but if two friends want to, or even a couple, why should I care?  It's not like they won't find some way to be together anyway.  At least this way they won't be annoying their roommates who have to stay outside while the tie's on the doorknob, or worse, lie there at 2 am pretending to sleep while hanky panky is going on.

I went to Oberlin and even back then (graduated in early 1990's) we had co-ed showers in the hippy co-op that I lived in. We all got used to it and it was totally non-sexual, at least for me.

Would I let my kid do it? I think if he assured me they were just friends and it wasn't likely to turn into a romantic relationship, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I would be much more reluctant to approve of it if they were a couple, only because I kind of doubt the lastingness of college relationships. I know that some people meet the person they end up marrying in college, but most of the couples I knew back then didn't necessarily make it through an entire school year. I think it would be distracting and miserable to be stuck living with your ex.

I attended the California Institute of Technology, and yes, people were allowed to choose 'mixed doubles' when I was a student in the 80's. It's a small school (1000 undergraduates), and most of the rooms were double occupancy, with some singles and maybe 4-5 triples.

"Room picks" were by class seniority, altered by any house office you might hold. So the House president would have the first pick. For non-officers, picks were ordered by class and then by drawing a Tarot card. If a situation ended up so that there was an odd number of women (that's always how we thought of it, given how few there were), then the woman with the last pick would end up getting a single.

When women were first admitted to the campus, there was a section of a dorm that was reserved just for women - but everyone hated that. When I was a student, there was an all-female building that was part of off campus housing (but quite close in, it just didn't have its own social identity), for women who wanted that. But as far as I know, once women were allowed to live in any House, there were never rules restricting mixed doubles. Everyone just looked the other way and let it work itself out.

While I was a student, we got a new President who came from another university. At some point in his first year, it suddenly became apparent to him that some of the students were in mixed doubles. He was appalled, and his first instinct was to crack down and end it immediately. One of our very bright, quite wonderful administrators immediately piped up with, "Before we can do that, we'll have to make sure we don't have any same sex gay couples rooming together." And he turned bright pink and that was the end of that.

The simple reality was that it wasn't a big deal. Indeed, very few couples formally picked the same room - the room pick roster didn't necessarily reflect where people stayed the night. And not every mixed couple actually was in a relationship.

I'm not sure, actually. Like a few others, I'm not sure I'd want my child (Jess or #2, regardlessof gender) rooming with a SO, because of the fragility of relationships at that age, plus the fact that I'm not sure I'd want my child to get so wrapped up in that so early. We all remember the total absorption of relationships at that age; I'd want my child to be out there experiencing everything of life!

However, I do recognize that my wants for my child are purely my own conjecture. If this did come up, I hope I'd have the self-control to discuss it rather than say "no" straight out of hand!

all through college and much preferred them to girls as friends (see how i've grown?).  technically, i roomed with girls, but that's only where i stored my clothes... i slept in a quad room with my favorite guys for most of my years in college and would've loved if my clothes could've lived there too.  thankfully for two years, my roommate and i dated roommates, so we just swapped.  until she went and broke up with her roommate.  it took me ten years to do the same.  but as a tomboy, i just got along better with the guys, and they seemed to tolerate having me around.

I think this policy is a matter of: administrators knowing that only a few students will ever choose to do it, and gay students have a legitimate issue here. So let's not spend a bunch of time clarifying policy that roomies have to be of the same sex, unless one of you is gay. Let's not and say we did.

Because I don't get the point of it. As I wrote recently, one of my BFF is a man, and we were once housemates - in our mid 20s. We have traveled together, and stayed in the same hotel room (in our late 20, early 30s). Back in the day, why would I want to live in the same bedroom with him 24/7? I also had female friends. And his girlfriend at the time hated me enough, thanks.

Would I want my son to do this? Well, honestly, if he came to me as a 19 year old young man and said he and his future female roomie were just friends - well, I can't get "But I didn't inhale" out of my mind.

when i was there in the early 90s, our floors were coed and the bathrooms were coed. i did not care. but i am a loner type and would have much rather had a single room.

as for my son, that seems so long away, who knows.

I'll say first that the idea of having to share rooms still kind of wigs me out, and by the time I got to University (1996) all but one of the dorms had been converted to single rooms, and they were in the process of switching that over to singles, too. I can't imagine having to share a room with a stranger and honestly, if I'd had to in my first year I'd have had second thoughts about attending University at all (yeah, not a people person here). I do wonder if part of that is the prevailance of drunkenness, I did know one guy who had to share a room in his first year and it was... not good. Both with the coupling and rolling in at 3am barely able to stand, one person wants to sleep late the other has to be up early, sharing a room in College just seems like a recipe for absolute disaster to me.
All of that said, if I absolutely had to share rooms at University, I think I would have found it tough when 2/3 to 3/4 of my friends were unavailable because of their sex. I think where people have to share a room for a year, they ought to be able to choose whoever they're most comfortable with, and that really ought to be up to them.

On-campus housing wasn't ever worth it for us.  We showed up married, and we would have hated to live in dorms and have restrictions.  Much better to cook your own food, etc.  But it was a small town where-off campus housing was plentiful and cheap.  

I think it's a fine idea, though probably not for freshmen.

especially for non-hetero situations. My BF in high school wound up in an absolutely horrid situation at a Big State School his freshman year. He listed himself as gay and was put into a dorm that was designated as a  gay-friendly dorm. Except the rooms were not co-ed. He found it horrifically uncomfortable to live with someone who considered him a potential hook up, or partner, and wound up leaving the whole school 3 weeks in.

SO what I would say is great- but not for Frosh year. Make the selection your sophomore year and go from there, but leave the potential hook-up factor out of it for the first year.