New Student Housing Assignment Process Overview
Welcome First-Year & Transfer Students!
New Student Housing Assignment Process
Residential Services is excited to welcome you to the first step in choosing your campus residence for the next academic year. To acquaint yourself with the process, we prepared two helpful brochures:
Residential Services will assign you a building and room based on the preferences you share in the housing contract. While every effort will be made to fulfill your preferences, assignments to specific buildings, rooms, or roommates cannot be guaranteed. Last year, over a third of all new students were assigned to their top building preference and approximately 77% received an assignment within their top five building choices. A small percentage of students were assigned to a building outside of their preferences.
Important Housing Process Dates
Room Assignment Dates
| Important Date |
Process |
| March 1 – June 1, 2027 |
Contract open to new students who have submitted their tuition deposit |
| June 1 – July 30, 2027 |
Room assignments processed and verified |
| Early August 2027 |
Assignment notification sent via email |
Residency Requirement
²ÝÝ®´«Ã½ has a two-year residency requirement for all incoming first-year undergraduate students. All incoming transfer students are required to live on campus for their first year. For more information about the residency requirement, including the process for requesting housing and/or meal plan accommodations, visit our residency requirement page.
Housing Options
Residential Services offers three housing models: residence halls, residential colleges, and special interest communities. Each provides a unique opportunity for engagement and growth. Regardless of housing model, all students share in a universal residential experience by living in a residential area that includes common services, amenities, programming, staff, and Faculty-in-Residence.
Continuous Housing
Undergraduate residence halls, residential colleges, and special interest communities remain open over Thanksgiving and Spring Break periods. All buildings except for Continuous Housing options close for Winter Break between 12:00 p.m. on December 11, 2027 and 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 1, 2028. If you need to remain on campus over Winter Break, you will need to request Continuous Housing in your housing contract and live in one of three designated Continuous Housing buildings.
All Gender Housing
All Gender Housing allows students, regardless of sex or gender, to share a room or suite. You will be able to select All Gender Housing as a preference in the housing assignments process.
Roommate Selection
You have two options for completing the roommate section of the housing contract:
- If you already have a roommate in mind, you will need their name and NetID. Once both students have completed their housing contracts, you will be able to create your roommate group using Roommate Finder. Roommate Finder will appear in the Housing Portal only after you have submitted your housing contract.
- If you do not have a specific roommate in mind, you can either search for roommates based on different preferences directly in our system and form roommate groups that way OR Residential Services will match you with someone based on your responses to roommate matching questions. .
Meal Plans
Per the housing and dining contract terms and conditions, all students living in residence halls, residential colleges, and special interest communities are required to have a meal plan. All incoming students will be assigned the Open Access meal plan. For more information about meal plans and dining on campus, please visit the
Housing Room Rates
Please visit our Room Rates page to view the current academic year's rates. The rates for 2027-2028 will be posted in Spring Quarter 2027.
Housing Cancellation
Once your contract is confirmed, you will only be considered eligible for cancellation if you meet one of these criteria:
- Academic Dismissal
- Approved Housing Accommodation/Exemption from Residency Requirement
- Disciplinary Exclusion from the University
- Graduation/Degree Completion
- Induction into Military Service
- Internship (including Co-Op, Medill programs, McCormick programs, etc.)
- Marriage/Civil Union (for marriages/civil unions occurring after date of contract)
- Study Abroad
Get Started!
To get started with your housing contract, access the housing portal after submitting your tuition deposit. The First Year and Transfer contract will open on March 1, 2027.
