Discover university room mate system broken?

This is not a bug. Depending on which dorm you move into, you will either be alone or moved into a household with other students. Either way, everyone else in the dorm is automatically considered your roommate and you won't be able to apply for any more roommates because the dorm is already full. The only time you can call on the phone to request a roommate is when you live off campus and have extra beds to fill.

@Trishaaalooo, what @desertrose0601  said is correct! 🙂 Just like in TS2 and TS3, dormmates are chosen by the game automatically, unless you move more than one into the dorm with your Sim or if there are Maxis-Made Sims already living there, like the 3 Sims shown at the top of this page. This is to mimic how in real-life your dormmates are assigned to you by student housing.  Applying for roommates off campus is a whole different system.  😉

My sim Lived in a dorm alone the whole time she  was at university. Is that normal? I thought there would be npc’s sims living in the dorm with her. I don’t seem to have the option in residential lots to ask her friend to be her roomate either. 

@DopieDopeSim No that’s not normal. In my experience and from what I’ve seen in other people’s games as well, the dorms are auto-populated so should always be full to capacity with roommates. 

@DopieDopeSim, what @desertrose0601 said is true.  This isn't normal.😞 Dorms should spawn dormmates for your Sim, eventually filling the rooms within a few Sim hours.  I have yet to try the residential lot roommate system, so I can't tell you how that is supposed to work just yet. But something isn't working right in your dorm! 

Do you happen to play with any Mods or CC? 🤔 If you do, please do the following:

1) Move the Mods Folder to your desktop

2) Delete localthumbcache.package file in the game folder.

3) Fix you game in Origin by logging in and go to Library, then right-click on The Sims 4 and choose the "Repair Game" option from the list.  Wait until Origin finishes repairing all your packs and not just the base game.

4) Now, when you turn on your game again, it will create a new mods folder that will be empty.  Check to see if your game is now working without mods/CC.

5) Now you can try adding back items from your Mods folder one at a time checking your game each time to see which item is causing your game to not work properly.  If you have a lot of items, you can try the 50/50 Method. 

The CC creators will usually update the CC items and Mods after these updates, so when you find out which one is the culprit, you can get the updated version from whoever made that item of CC in the first place.  You should try these steps anytime you have problems in your game to rule out CC/Mods problems.  It is the responsibility of the Mods/CC creators to update their items anytime EA releases a patch/update, and it is the responsibility of the people who use Mods/CC to make sure they are using the most recent version. 

Now, if this doesn't work, or if you don't use Mods/CC, there might be another problem with your game. 🤨  You could try a test save (new game on its own save file) and see if the same thing happens in the dorms in the new Save file.  Either way, please reply back to us with your results, so we can try to get your dorms working as they should! 😇

I want to add my two cents to this semi old topic as this happened to me too. I read in OP's post that he says that the sims were actually added to his household. That is not the same as having roommates, because roommates do not show up in your list of portrets, they are just there! When I enrolled my sim into university and chose the dorm with the Best Friends household, those two sims were also added to my household and were actually playable. I had to evict them to be able to move in to that dorm normally without getting unwanted bonus sims added to my household.

Edit: Added some screenshots:

@AlHollandiyah, in your case, this was by design.😉  When you play a dorm or house that has Maxis-made Sims in it that come with the pack, you will automatically have control of these Sims.  This is like with the Base Game when you play the Goth house  -- you will automatically play with the Goth family unless you evict them and move in your own Sims.  The only difference with the dorms is that you can still move in your own Sims to be dormmates with the Maxis-made ones. You will either have to move out the Best Friends or just play along with them and any Sims you move into their dorm.  The same goes for the dorm at Foxbury where the Sim called Cameron Fletcher lives.  🙂  But the dorms at both universities that don't have a Maxis-Made Sim already living there will just have your Sim or Sims that you control and the remainder of dormmates will be generated at random by your game. 😉

So, this is not a bug and your game is working as intended ! 🙌

@PugLove888So if I understand it correctly, if Maxis Sims are in a dorm when you move in, you more or less get them as a free burden, but if you want your own sims in there with your university student that is not possible. Is that right?

@AlHollandiyahyes and no, depending on if you want to keep the Maxis Sims! 😉 You can go ahead and play with them along your Sim for an extra challenge, but if you don't want them as playable Sims you can move them out of the dorm! 🙂  

There are supposed to be 2 ways to do this but I can only get one of them to work.

What worked for me was to move your Sim in with the Maxis Sim or Sims (I saved my game right away) and then immediately go to the Manage Worlds button on the top right of the screen (looks like a grid with a location marker).  Then you should get the box asking if you want to manage worlds or save and manage worlds.  Click on either of those and you should be brought to the Britechester map.  From the map, click on the dorm where your Sim (and the Sim or Sims you can control right now) are living. Just click to highlight the dorm.  Then in the bottom right of your screen click on the button called More that looks like 3 dots.  This will bring up 3 more buttons and from here you want to click on the button that is called Manage Households (looks like 2 persons and a pencil on it). Then you should see your Sim and the Maxis Sim(s) on the left and some buttons on the right.  Click on the button with arrows going in right and left called Transfer Sims.  Then you will see another bigger box with your Sims and the other(s) on the left and a big blank space on the right.  At the top of the blank space is a long button that says Create New Household -- click on that .  Then choose the Sim or Sims you don't want to live in the dorm anymore.  In the case of the Best Friends household, you would click on both of them and their pictures will turn green at the edges.  Then click the arrow pointing to the right and the Maxis Sims you don't want will go in the blank box with yours still in the box on the left.  (If you want you can put the Maxis Sims in another household also, but I just made a new household that wasn't in the world. )  With the Maxis Sims in the right box and yours in the left you can click the check mark in the bottom right of the box.  Another box will probably pop up to confirm your decision. 🙂
From there you can re-enter the dorm. The Maxis Sims will be located at the dorm, but they will be visitors and you can't control them anymore because they are no longer in your household! 🙌

The other way that I couldn't get to work was to have the Maxis Sims move out by having them do so by phone (you can have them drop out of university if you want).  I tried to do this with one of the Best Friends, and she split from the household and a loading screen popped up (I assume so you could move her into a new home, and then I planned on doing this with the other Best Friend and then returning to the dorm to play my Sim)… but when the loading screen popped up it just loaded for more than 5 minutes which never happens in my game.😞  I tried it twice but it happened both times. This is either a glitch in just my game, or a bug in everyone's game.🤔  (I don't play with Mods or CC!).  

Now, about adding your own additional Sims to one of yours that is already in the dorm, I cannot get it to work!  I do not know if I'm going about it wrong or if it is a bug that might be fixed later, or if this was what the developers intended. 🤔  I will have to research this a bit more and get back to you! 🤨

You are welcome to try the 2nd method, but since I didn't get that to work I can only recommend the 1st method!🤨
If you have anymore questions, please feel free to ask! And please update on how this works for you! 😇 Happy Simming! 🥳