Why is a Waitlist Process necessary?
The waitlist is necessitated because many rooms/beds available on campus are encumbered by administrative purposes, including beds held out to be assigned to Community Advisors who have not yet been hired and Theme Community rooms to be filled off the waitlist. Additionally, some students may choose to take leave from the College or live off campus locally. Between now and July those issues will slowly resolve allowing waitlisted students to be housed.
Why is the Waitlist Process a placement process?
A placement process allows College staff to leverage additional data in order to create the most optimal assignments for waitlisted students. Some of the most important benefits are:
Where will the vacancies used in the Waitlist Process be located?
Students participating in the Waitlist Process should not worry about their ability to gain housing. There are more beds on campus than we have students who need one. Vacancies will become available as students are hired as Community Advisors, take leave from the College, or join Theme Communities.
Do I need to look for off-campus housing if I am on the waitlist?
Students on the waitlist do not need to apply to live off campus. The College has sufficient beds for all students who are enrolled in the fall semester.
If you are interested in applying to live off campus, please see more information on this page.
What are the differences between the Waitlist Process and the general Housing Selection Process?
Unlike the Housing Selection Process, the Waitlist Process will be a placement process. As such, students will fill out their questionnaires with detailed information about their housing preferences and roommate information. The Housing & Operations Team will then use the collected individual preferences to place each student in a room. A conscious effort is made to place students in their most prefered residence halls if there are spaces available. However, we cannot guarantee that students will receive their first choices.
Can I request to live in a room that I know will become available during the Waitlist Process? (i.e. I anticipate that the students who are currently assigned to the space will be CAs etc.)
Students with vacancies in their rooms will be given the opportunity to name a new roommate. All fully vacant rooms will be filled in the Waitlist Process.
How can I learn more about the physical spaces in the residence halls?
Our colleagues in Facilities maintain a list of floor plans of all halls and houses. The floor plans will not yet reflect the occupancy changes from the last several years.
Where are Gender-Inclusive Restrooms (GIRs) located?
In most residence halls, single-gender and gender-inclusive restrooms are present. The restrooms are distributed such that a student would have to travel a limited distance (such as one floor level), depending on the restroom preference. To learn more about gender-inclusive restrooms, please visit the Queer Resource Center’s website.
What are the differences between gender-inclusive restrooms and gendered restrooms?
Gender-inclusive restrooms are those that can be used by anyone regardless of their gender identity. Gendered restrooms are set as 'men' and 'women.' When selecting a room, the room description will indicate what type of restrooms are available to you nearby. The restroom designations must be maintained as they were created.
How likely are rising juniors (current sophomores) to receive single rooms?
Last year, only about 20 rising juniors who participated in the General Placement Process received single rooms. This year enrollment is still expected to be quite high, and we anticipate that this trend will continue. Single rooms will be reserved for students with registered housing accommodations, but all students in the rising junior and sophomore classes should identify a possible roommate and prepare to select a double room.
What if I have not identified someone to be my roommate for my selection night? Can someone assist me in finding a roommate?
Students who do not have a roommate will not be able to select a room after all of the single rooms have been selected. We encourage you to begin looking for a potential roommate now. If you are interested in opportunities to meet potential roommates, please reach out to your local CDC.
How soon before the General Selection Process do I have to finalize my roommate pair?
Roommate pairs can be formed and broken as many times as desired from the time that pairings open until the pair chooses a room. Therefore, if a pair is trying to decide between single and double room options, they can wait as long as they would like to form the pair.
Why is there no option to join a Time Group?
Students who participated in the HSP during the pandemic may recall a concept that was known as ‘Time Groups’. These groups advantaged larger cohorts of peers in creating adjacent, insular blocks of assignments within a residence hall. One of the commitments held by the Student Affairs is to equitably distribute the limited resource of assignments across our housing stock. As such, the 'Time Groups' have been discontinued to provide more power to a student’s Selection Number, and less power to a group. Instead, groups of students who find interest in living nearer to their peer group should organize prior to the HSP and conduct an accounting of each peer’s Selection Number. A group of students who wish to attempt to live in closer proximity to each other would benefit by:
What happens if my roommate leaves the College?
Communication is critical during this time. Please be forthcoming with plans to leave the College when asked by a friend/acquaintance. We will be at maximum occupancy across campus next academic year. When an opening in a double becomes available, the Housing & Operations team will reassign that space to another student after a brief opportunity is offered to the remaining student to identify a roommate on their own.
How are housing selection numbers assigned?
Housing selection numbers are randomly assigned by anticipated graduation semester. For the purposes of housing selection, students of the following class years will be able to select together.
The official class year maintained by the registrars office will be used. If you have concerns regarding what is on file for you, please feel free to contact Housing & Operations, or the Registrars office.
For students coming back from leave, what will their class standing be in terms of housing?
Housing & Operations plans in advance to include students returning from leave upon readmission. (Please note: entering the readmission process may not mean you are automatically formally readmitted. Please correspond with osa-enrollment@amherst.edu with any questions about the readmission process). Housing Selection Process Numbers (HSP#s) are randomly assigned by cohort, and when those numbers were generated for students who were active at that time, a random sampling of HSP#s were also set aside for students returning to the College.
I would like to apply to a Theme Community. How do I do that?
Students who are interested in applying to possible vacancies in the Asian Culture House, Drew House, French Language, German Language, Humphries House, the Latinx Culture House, Marsh House, Russian Language, Spanish Language, and Sylvia Rivera communities will be able to find the applications on this page in January each year. Please check this page for the pre-application and all relevant dates and process notes.
Will there be spaces available in all-women or all-men communities?
Students interested in living on an single gendered floor can assess the availability of those rooms when the list of available rooms is released shortly before the selection process. This year, there are all-women floors located on morrow 4th Floor, Nicholls Biondi 0 and 4th floors, and the all-male floor is Wieland 0.
During the selection process, students with an assigned gender marker in Workday will be the only students who are able to select rooms on these floors. Students whose gender marker does not match their gender identity but wish to live in this community should contact Housing & Operations for assistance with an override. Please email osaops@amherst.edu at least one day prior to their selection process.
I’m interested in living off campus. Is that possible?
Please visit the page on our website regarding Off-Campus Housing for more information. Off-campus housing is capped at 50 students for the 2022-2023 Academic Year, and applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
When is the deadline to request housing accommodations?
All students seeking accommodations must submit documentation several weeks prior to the General Housing Selection Process. Visit the Accessibility Services website for updated deadlines and other logistical information.
How do housing accommodations affect selection order?
In the Housing Selection Process, students may be assigned an adjusted Selection Number based on their class year and approved accommodations. These alterations to the Selection Number are assessed on an individual basis according to the housing accommodation approved by Accessibility Services. Not all accommodations require adjustments to the Selection Number.
Adjusted Selection Numbers result in selection times allowing the student to select from a broader range of housing assignment options that meet their approved housing accommodation. Students must engage in the Housing Selection Process and select their assignment. All students with accommodations who are participating in the Housing Selection Process will be notified if their Selection Number requires modification.
Which housing accommodations qualify a student for an adjusted Selection Number?
The number and location of available rooms that meet a student’s accommodation(s) determine whether or not a student receives an adjusted Selection Number. The Selection Number is adjusted in order to ensure that there will be rooms available that meet a student’s accommodations when that student selects their room.
The number of students seeking accommodations and the availability of particular room types varies from year to year, therefore neither the Housing & Operations Team, Accessibility Services, nor Religious and Spiritual Life can state which accommodations will be eligible for earlier selection with certitude until all accommodations are processed.
Students with accommodations who are participating in the Housing Selection Process will be notified about whether or not their Selection Number has been modified and the factors that led to that Selection Number assignment prior to the process.
My group is interested in participating in the Suite Selection Process. How can we sign up?
All interested students can register for the STSP using this registration form. The form will be available until 11:59 pm EDT on April 3rd, 2022.
Once that information is shared, students will be able to share their suite groups via Google Form. To indicate shared consent of all group members, a group will not be considered finalized until the group leader (person that submits the form) forwards the copy of the form receipt email with the Office of Residential Life, with all group members copied.
Is there a suite selection? What suites will be able to be chosen?
Students will be able to organize in groups of 3 (Mayo and Triples), 4 (Greenways), 5 (Mayo), or 10 (Jenkins). After submissions are received, groups will be chosen in order of averaged Selection Numbers during a live conference via Zoom. Jenkins 101A-101F and Jenkins 201A-201F will be placed as single rooms, and not included in the Suite Selection Process.
What is the likelihood that my group of rising sophomores will get a suite?
The chances are very low. Similar to the general process, selection order is based on seniority (rising class standing). Full groups of rising seniors will be drawn first. Once we exhaust groups of rising seniors, we will move to a combined group of rising seniors and juniors, and then rising juniors and sophomores and so forth.
Histocally, a few sophomores have been chosen for spaces in the Greenways suites consisting of two double rooms. Participating rising sophomores are most likely to be chosen for spaces in triple rooms.
If my group is chosen in the STSP but we do not want any of the spaces left, do we have to live in a Suite or Triple?
No, all selected groups are given the opportunity to choose or withdraw from the STSP during the selection event. If a group is not interested in any of the spaces remaining, they may decline the opportunity to choose to await the possibility of being chosen for another suite type or to participate in the general selection process.
Should students who are planning to study away participate in the housing process?
The deadline to commit to study away programs for Fall is April 1. Students who commit to study away will not receive a Selection Time for the Housing Selection Process. Students who commit to a study away program and subsequently withdraw from that program will be able to participate in an alternate room assignments process in the late summer.
I have a No-Communication and Restricted Proximity Order (NCRPO) in place with another student. How do I manage my housing selection and the terms of the order?
Students who are eligible to participate in the housing selection process and have or are considering a No-Communication and Restricted Proximity Order should contact Scott Howard, Associate Dean of Students, (showard@amherst.edu) for more information.
For more information available about resources available to students, visit the Office of Student Affairs webpage.
I have an unstable internet connection/ need assistance with selection - what should I do?
Students with an unstable internet connection may choose to call in to select their room during their designated housing selection timeslot, or can designate the College as their proxy. If you would like to designate the College as your proxy, email OSAOps@amherst.edu to discuss your preferences and the logistics of the process.