Rate My Roommate

Inspiration

College housing decisions are often made blindly. We've all heard roommate horror stories or experienced them firsthand - from the night owls disrupting your sleep to the ones who never wash their dishes. We created RateMyRoommate because students deserve to make informed decisions about who they'll share their living space with during such a formative time in their lives.

What it does

Rate My Roommate is a platform that helps students share and access honest feedback about potential roommates. Users create profiles with their educational email addresses, search for previous or potential roommates, and leave structured reviews based on their living experiences. The platform includes ratings on key factors like cleanliness, noise levels, and overall compatibility, alongside written reviews that provide context and personal experiences.

How we built it

We developed Rate My Roommate using Next.js for a responsive user experience, with TailwindCSS and for a clean, intuitive interface. The backend runs on Supabase's PostgreSQL database to securely store user profiles and reviews. We implemented Clerk for secure authentication with educational email validation to ensure our community remains focused on students.

Challenges we ran into

Educational email validation proved trickier than anticipated, as we needed to verify countless institutions while preventing non-students from joining. Building a review system that's both helpful and protective against misuse required careful balance - we wanted honest feedback without enabling harassment or defamation. Determining the right questions to ask in our review system was another challenge. We needed to capture the essential aspects of roommate compatibility without making the process tedious or intrusive.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're most proud of our user interface design. We created a refrigerator-themed interface with sticky notes and a to-do list that perfectly mimics how roommates actually communicate in shared living spaces. This familiar, relatable design reflects the authentic roommate experience while making the platform instantly intuitive for students. We've successfully married practical functionality with an authentic visual language that speaks directly to student life. Beyond our robust educational email verification and balanced review system, it's this attention to real-world roommate dynamics in our design that makes RateMyRoommate both useful and delightful to use.

What we learned

Building Rate My Roommate taught us the importance of user privacy and data protection, especially when handling potentially sensitive information. We learned to balance transparency with responsible data practices. We also gained valuable insights into the specific concerns students have regarding roommates and living situations, which helped us refine our platform to address real problems rather than assumptions.

What's next for Rate My Roommate

We're planning to expand Rate My Roommate with several features:

Enhanced AI-powered review validation to detect and filter out fake or irrelevant reviews, ensuring students receive authentic feedback about potential roommates
Google API integration to improve location accuracy and provide detailed information about neighborhoods, proximity to campus, and available amenities
Advanced review analytics that highlight patterns across multiple reviews to give users a more comprehensive understanding of potential roommates
Machine learning algorithms to flag potentially biased or malicious reviews before they're published
Expanded verification systems to maintain the integrity of our platform as we grow, keeping the focus on genuine student experiences