While students sometimes include information the deans don't know what to do with--like their favorite muppet--students aren't asked about potentially important factors like ethnic or religious background, Sparagana says.

After assigning students to rooming groups, the deans place the groups in entryways. According to Sparagana, the deans aim to create "a microcosm of the College" in each dorm.

Odd Couples

But despite the careful process administrators describe, some rooming combinations seem too incredible to be coincidental.

Last year four first-year women shared a Strauss suite. The group was completely ordinary, except that their names--Holland, Holmes, Hong, and Hootnick--followed almost one after the next in the student directory.

"Because it was in alphabetical order, I didn't realize it was my rooming group," Danielle A. Hootnick '99 says. "I thought it was something from the freshman register."

Hootnick says she only realized after speaking to the other women that they would actually live together.

In fact, seven Strauss residents appeared in almost unbroken alphabetical order in last year's directory.

"I had my suspicions all year," Hootnick says. "It was too bizarre."

And this year, six J-men also test the limits of coincidence. Josh, Josh, John, John, Jessie and Al (Ju) share a Canaday Suite.

"It was a great joke," Josh E. Penzner '00 says. "Finding out that we all had very similar names was very funny."

According to Penzner, the six guys named J. get along well. But names aside, he says, they are a motley crew.

"It's not like we are very much the same people. We span East Coast to West Coast, from New York to Oregon. People-wise and interestwise and belief-wise, we are very diverse."

Although bizarre name coincidences suggest a sense of humor in the FDO, the deans responsible insist that they play no games.

Sparagana says that even the J-men were a chance grouping.