roommate conflictNightmare roommates are feared by college students everywhere.

Surely everyone has heard a story about roommates who are so incompatible that they can’t stand to be around each other–a major problem because they must live in a 10×10 foot space together. Having a “nightmare roommate” inevitably causes unwanted conflict and stress, and in extreme cases can affect academic performance and drive students to leave school.

To avoid this situation, many students take matters into their own hands by choosing to live with people they already know or by taking to Facebook to meet and choose potential roommates themselves.

Others are more optimistic; they choose to be assigned a roommate, fill out a short survey, often 6-10 questions about study and sleeping habits offered by their university, and hope for the best.

Enter Compatibility–the Chicago area start-up that is aiming to give college students a better chance at finding a compatible roommate. Compatibility dives deep in to each individual’s personality and uses an algorithm similar to that of dating websites to match them.

Through Compatibility’s website, students take a 100-question survey that examines 39 facets of their personality. Students can immediately view their matches and from there decide who to reach out to. After conversing with several of their matches, it’s up to the students to choose their ultimate best match and decide to room together.

The company’s founders, psychologist Kim Rubenstein, 42, and businesswoman Andrea Yusim Meltzer, 56, have found that qualities that are more intrinsic to a student’s identity, such as self-esteem and personal values, are more predictive of compatibility than habits, such as studying and sleeping patterns.

Here are a few (somewhat surprising) examples of the pairs the company says typically work:

–Football player & Violinist: A dedicated sports player does well with a devoted musician.
–Engineering Student & Art Student: Left-brained logical people do well with right-brained creative people.
–Low Self-Esteem & High Self-Esteem: Those with low self-esteem should try a roommate with high self-esteem and vice versa.
–Comedian & Debate Team Champion: People who value humor do well with people who are open to facing conflict.
–Avoids conflict & Collaborator: People who shy away from conflict do best with collaborators.

Compatibility has one college client and two private student housing operators with several more clients in the works. The founders are in the process of calling universities across the nation to invest in their algorithm.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Paul Reid, Northwestern’s executive director of residential services says that, anecdotally, he hasn’t seen much of a difference between student roommates selected randomly and those paired by algorithms. Similarly, Kristen Ruby, associate director of housing for communications and marketing at the University of Illinois, says learning to get along with someone who isn’t exactly like you is part of the growth one experiences at college, implying that students should learn to make it work with whoever they are assigned.

What is your experience with college roommates, either personal or anecdotal? Should universities invest more money in algorithms like Compatibility to better ensure the happiness of their students? What do you think?