Some Temple Students Use App To Choose Their Roommates
By Syma Chowdhry
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- It's move-in day at Temple University!
For many students it is the first time they get to meet their new roommates.
For some they finally get to put a face to the name of the person they handpicked to share a dorm with.
Temple uses an app called RoomSync. That allows incoming freshman and transfer students to look for compatible roommates.
The Associate Director of Housing Sean Killion says, "They can engage with students online. They can look at their Facebook information, their profiles. And they can get a good sense of who they are living with prior to making that commitment."
School officials say students who use the app perform better academically.
"Having input into who you are living with is a huge consideration for your happiness and success when you come to school."
Temple was one of the first schools to use this app. Three years later, it's grown in popularity. Out of the 3,500 freshman students coming in this year, 1,500 used the app.
Cierra Harris says, "I figured might as well use the app and see if it works and it really helps and it did help."
Cierra Harris picked Zaire Jones-Cruz to share this dorm with.
Jones-Cruz says, "It's actually a lot easier than doing a random selection. You actually see the person and just find out more about them."
They hadn't met before today but say they have so much in common and feel like old friends.
"Our interests in movies, music, you know how you talk to a person and you are like, 'I like you, you like me, lets room together.'"
School officials hope in the future more students will take advantage of the app.
"They can make decisions for themselves. And we find that when that happens, students are happier and the success skyrockets."
And that's something to look forward to once these students finish moving in.
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