A Perfect Flat? May the Odds be Ever in Your Favour

A Perfect Flat? May the Odds be Ever in Your Favour

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Ananya Garg

2024

Dr. Martyn Parker

Each year, when applying for campus housing, first-year students rank different accommodations based on factors like price and location. They then complete a questionnaire designed to capture traits and preferences, such as sociability and sleeping habits, to help identify "compatible" flatmates. However, "compatibility" is hard to define—how do we measure similarity between flatmates, or compare a student’s satisfaction in one flat versus another? This project investigates various matching algorithms and heuristics to optimize student allocations, maximizing overall satisfaction within flats.

Clustering, Heuristics, Matching Algorithms, Algorithms, Probability, Stable Marriage, Matchings, Accommodation, Optimization, Combinatorics, Combinatorial Optimization