You may wonder why we brought you together ...

One of television's most durable sitcoms, "The Odd Couple," depicted hilarious conflicts between a neatness freak and a sloppy sports fanatic living together in a small apartment.

But for 1.7 million college freshmen this fall, the prospect of getting saddled with the wrong roommate is no joke. Just ask Kelsie Costa.

"I had a roommate who thought she had a single room," says Ms. Costa, a freshman last year at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "She had her boyfriend over night and day. When I was studying, she would watch TV. If I was watching, and she wanted to study, she would just turn it off."

After a number of debacles, Costa made a decision that colleges dread: She transferred.

To freshmen encountering the demands of college-level study, an inconsiderate roommate can be a serious distraction that harms grades, confidence, and commitment to the school. For all those reasons, bad roommate situations can be costly to colleges as well - prompting some to exercise greater care in creating matches that have to survive the vicissitudes of freshman year.

"It can make or break a college experience," says Joan Schmidt, president of the Association of College and University Housing Officers International. "It can be the last excuse before they say: 'That's it, I'm out of here.' "

Beginning about 1980, many colleges tried to improve retention rates by identifying and pairing like-minded freshmen using psychological tests. Most saw little improvement and returned to a random approach, Ms. Schmidt says.

Today, schools typically begin by sorting freshmen into a few categories before the random matching. Most schools do avoid placing smokers and nonsmokers in the same room. They also may ask about a few preferences: for instance, whether a student gets up early or studies late.

But a few schools are still experimenting with ways to get the freshman roommate match just right.

At the University of Texas at Austin, housing officials have devised a Web-based system that asks students about smoking, sleeping, exercise and study habits, music, frequency of visitors, interest in fraternities, and computer use. And the list is growing.

"We kept asking how we might make it possible for students to ask each other these questions," says Sheila Ochner, associate director for housing and food. "We wanted to get ourselves out of the equation."

At UT-Austin, 2,800 students filled out online profiles to help pick roommates for the fall. Students can comment on the importance of various issues: "I would prefer a roommate who listens to music while studying (Yes, No, Sometimes)." Or, perhaps: "I would prefer a roommate with this level of cleanliness: Very Neat."

The website compiles students' answers into a checklist profile that also includes name, e-mail address, and phone number. Students then sift through the database, making their matches according to their own criteria.

It's not the ultimate answer to the roommate dilemma. Some still are matched randomly. And some self-matched roommates still request changes. But Ms. Ochner hopes the system - in place for two years and still being refined - will yield better results than a random approach.

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