Smart Roommate Matching for Happier Dorms

Reduce roommate conflicts, improve student satisfaction, and make dorm life better with smart, compatibility-based roommate matching.

How Otter Works for Universities

Students answer key questions about their lifestyle, sleep habits, personality, and roommate preferences to build a profile that reflects how they actually live. They can highlight deal-breakers, preferred study environments, social habits, and more—giving them a better chance at finding a truly compatible roommate.
Instead of relying on chance, Otter makes roommate selection intentional. Students can browse compatible profiles, see shared interests and habits, and “like” potential roommates. If both students choose each other, it’s a match! They can then chat directly in the app to get to know each other before committing—reducing awkward surprises and last-minute housing issues.
Otter’s Admin Dashboard allows housing teams to efficiently manage roommate assignments. Once two students agree to live together, they both confirm their match through the app, and the university is automatically notified. Admins can track student pairings, monitor housing availability, and oversee the process in a simple, organized way—reducing conflicts and minimizes room change requests later in the semester.

Better matches = happier students, fewer room change requests.

Students are often matched without considering lifestyle differences, leading to incompatible roommates, arguments, and frequent room change requests—a major administrative burden.
Basic questionnaires don’t capture personality, social habits, or deal-breakers accurately. Housing teams spend hours sorting responses manually, yet mismatches still happen.
Roommate conflicts don’t just cause frustration—they affect mental health, academic performance, and overall satisfaction with the university. In extreme cases, they even lead to students transferring out.

Key Benefits for Universities

When students have a say in choosing compatible roommates, they feel more comfortable, happier, and engaged in campus life—leading to a stronger sense of community and improved student retention.
Eliminate the time-consuming, manual work of sorting roommate requests. Otter’s automated system makes it easy for housing teams to manage assignments without the hassle.
Fewer mismatched roommates mean fewer conflicts, fewer room change requests, and more stable housing assignments—saving universities time and resources.