Earlier this month, applications opened to reserve on-campus housing for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Understanding Room Selection time slots, lottery numbers and roommate groups:
Room Selection time slots
Time slots for Room Selection are based on a student’s class year.
Numbers 1—10,000 are given to rising seniors in the class of 2025, numbers 10,001—20,000 are given to rising juniors in the class of 2026, and numbers 20,001—30,000 are given to rising sophomores in the class of 2027.
The higher the number, the later the room selection time is in the process.
Roommate groups
The housing application allows students to create roommate groups, including multi-gender roommate groups.
Students can only be members of one group at a time. If a student leaves a roommate group, they can join another, however group leaders can’t leave the group they create.
An individual in the group can serve as a “proxy” and assign other roommates during room selection. This may be helpful for students whose group mates have a more favorable lottery number than them, as they can pick a room earlier.
What type of room selection works best with what I want?
During the room selection process, students selecting dormitory and suite-style residences must select a dining plan. Students in apartment-style residences must select an optional dining plan for the time being, even if they don’t want one during the fall semester.
Same room reservation process
If a student decides they want to keep their room from the 2023—2024 academic year, they can.
From Feb. 26 to Feb. 27, students are able to reserve their same rooms in dormitory- and apartment-style housing. After 11 p.m. on Feb. 27, the ability to reserve the same room will end.
Students can keep their housing from last year and also bring potential roommates into their current housing situation.
Students will be able to “opt-out” of their Same Room Selection, forfeiting their selection to continue the housing application process during Internal and Community Room Selection, until March 7. Same room opt-out is only available to students who have not participated in Same Room Pull-In and assigned a roommate to their current living space.
Same Room Pull-In
Students can keep their current housing and pull in potential roommates.
Students who already participated in the same room selection and wish to assign roommate group members to their unit will receive their time slots for Same Room Pull-In on March 4. From March 6 to March 7, Same Room Pull-In is open and available for all class years.
Students with Gender Affirming and Gender Neutral Housing are eligible to participate in Same Room Pull-In.
Internal Room Selection process
During Internal Room Selection, students can select housing in another room or apartment within their current residence. For example, a student living in Sleeper can move to any other available room in Sleeper during this time. During this time, roommate group leaders can assign potential roommates to beds or beds in their unit.
Students will be able to see what rooms are available and assign themselves and their roommate group members to a room. Students have five minutes to make assignments. During the five minutes, the room will be shown as unavailable to other students.
A student does not have to fill all spaces in a room at once during selection.
However, just because a student decides to make a selection during internal selection, doesn’t mean students are guaranteed a space in their current residence. If there are no spaces left in a residence during internal selection, students are not guaranteed a space within their current residence if all available rooms have been selected.
Students will receive their Internal Selection time slots on March 22. Starting March 25, Internal Selection will be available to rising seniors. The next day, rising juniors and rising sophomores will have the ability to participate in Internal Selection.
Community Room Selection process
During Community Room Selection, students who have not yet selected their housing for next year will be able to select housing from anywhere on campus.
First, students will be able to select residences by campus area. From there, all available rooms in that campus area selected will appear, and students can select a specific room type and residence location.
Students will then have five minutes to assign themselves and potential roommates to a unit, during which the chosen room will appear unavailable to other students.
Students will receive their Community Selection time slots on March 27. On March 28, Community Selection will be available for rising seniors, and will be available to rising juniors the following day on March 29. Selection will be open to rising sophomores April 1 and 2.
Gender Affirming and Gender Neutral Selection process
BU offers both gender-affirming and gender neutral housing assignments for students.
According to BU Housing, “only students who identify as transgender or do not identify as man or woman in the IAM system will receive a time slot to participate [in the Gender-Affirming selection process].”
Students will receive their Gender-Affirming selection time slots on March 18, 2024, and selection will take place the following day.
Students may create Gender-Neutral rooms, suites and apartments if they have created a multi-gender roommate selection group or if all students in the roommate group “do not identify as man or woman in the IAM system,” according to the BU Housing website.
Gender-Neutral Housing roommate groups can participate in Same Room Selection and Same Room Pull-In.
Gender Neutral has its own room selection time separate from Internal and Community Selection. Students will receive their Gender-Neutral selection time slots on March 20, 2024, and actual selection will take place the following day.
Rooms in the West Campus dormitories — specifically Claflin, Rich and Sleeper Halls, The Towers and Warren Towers are not eligible to be gender-neutral. Suites and rooms in the Living-Learning Communities and Speciality Communities, with the exception of Global House, are also not eligible to be gender-neutral.
Summer Swap
The Housing office offers three room-change periods during the year: a fall room-change period with the opening of on-campus residences in September, for a limited time before and during the spring semester, and following the spring room selection process until the end of spring semester.
Students unhappy with their room assignment will have the opportunity to apply for a Room Change Request Form during the summer, based on availability after housing selection has completed, also known as summer swap. Swap assignments will be given priority based on seniority. Additionally, students originally with higher time slot numbers receive lower ones for summer swap.
BU Housing has virtual information sessions for those who feel they need more information about the housing process. The next virtual information session is Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 5 p.m.
This is incredibly helpful!
Thank you so much for this riveting piece! So excited to reserve my housing now!
Next year I plan to buy a house, so these things are useful for me to have a good luggage in the future.
Actual selection will take place the following day.