Room Selection for Returning Students

Room Selection To-Do List

See the important dates page for specific dates and deadlines for each step of the room selection process.

Apply to a Themed Housing Community of your choice.
Request or renew your Housing Accommodation via the Office of Accessibility Services.
Review the Housing Contract on your Housing Portal.
Apply and sign your contract on your Housing Portal via the Housing Application.
- Applicants will receive an email to alert them of their eligibility status to participate in Room Selection. If eligible to participate, either from the randomization process or from a housing guarantee, you will given a 5-minute Room Selection timeslot. To tap into the housing guarantee for your specific category, you must meet all required deadlines.
Submit a Roommate Group Consent and Verification form.
- You can only pull in people who are also deemed eligible or those who are guaranteed.
Fill out the Proxy form if no members of your requested roommate group can make your collective best-assigned Room Selection Time Slot.

Applying for On-Campus Housing

The Housing Application can be located on your Housing Portal.

You must click the SUBMIT button on the last page for the Office of Residence Life to receive your application.

Once you SUBMIT the Housing Application you will receive a confirmation email (check spam and junk folders). If you do not get this email, it may indicate that you did not click submit so please check back into your Housing Application. The Housing Portal will also inform you of the application status. If you have issues confirming your application status, please contact our office.

Housing Accommodations

Housing Accommodation requests are processed by the Office of Accessibility Services. To learn more about registering for Housing Accommodations, please visit the Register with Accessibility Services webpage. Please direct all questions about accommodations to the Office of Accessibility Services (OAS) at [email protected]. If you currently have an active Housing Accommodation on file do not forget to renew if you are looking to have that accommodation met in the 2024-2025 academic year. Current approved accommodations do not carry over into the next academic year.

OAS will provide a list of students who are deemed eligible for specific Housing Accommodations to the ORL, such as single rooms, low occupancy bathrooms, elevators, or first-floor rooms. ORL places students who are selected to participate in Room Selection, who have eligible accommodations and an active housing application, in the order of eligibility date. ORL meets the housing accommodation based on available room inventory. Having an Eligible Housing Accommodation does not guarantee a student the opportunity to participate in Room Selection. Students that ONLY have a Service Animal or Emotional Support Animal accommodation will not be placed by ORL but will be able to select their room via the General Room Selection process.

Students who are placed will also receive a Time Slot to participate in Room Selection. This means they can create a roommate group if they are not in a single room or elect to participate in the process without the accommodation.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024: OAS will start reviewing Housing Accommodation Requests
Friday, March 1, 2024: Housing Accommodation Request “Closing.” Submissions after this date cannot receive priority in Room Placement. Accommodations will be honored depending on room inventory if submitted after this date
March 18 – March 22, 2024: Housing Accommodation Placements. Placements are made by the eligibility date of accommodation. Once Room Assignments are shared, we will not change them based on preferences. Students will receive a timeslot within the General Room Selection period to adjust their assignment if they would like to.

Participating in Room Selection

Participation Eligibility

Any students who are guaranteed housing (please see the Guaranteed Housing Categories section below) who meet deadlines are eligible to participate in Room Selection. For Rising Juniors, Seniors, and students in their +1 year of an accelerated program, we do our best to allocate the remaining beds fairly. If a student falls into any of these categories, they’ll have the same opportunity to receive housing as other students in those categories.

Due to the high number of applicants, we cannot have everyone included in the Room Selection process. From the Rising Juniors, Rising Seniors, and Rising +1 students we will be randomizing who can participate, which is a process a significant amount of universities practice if they do not have enough beds on campus to accommodate their entire population. The randomization process is conducted like a lottery, with an online generator to determine who can participate. We are also taking into account the uncertainty of how many rising Sophomore students will take up the guarantee offer, which means we have reserved beds for all of them who live with us this year. As a result, there are only a limited number of beds left for Rising +1, Rising Seniors, and Rising Juniors, around 385. Although it’s difficult to predict the exact percentage of applicants who will be eligible to participate in Room Selection, we typically see around 70 students on our waitlist. Based on this, we estimate that around 85% of our applicants will be eligible to participate.

We want to assure you that all students who wish to live on campus will eventually be assigned a bed before the Fall semester begins, even if they are not able to participate in the Room Selection process, as we have historically exhausted our Housing Waitlist.

Students who are studying abroad in the Fall 2024 semester will not be eligible to participate in Room Selection. We will launch the Spring Only Housing Application in October of 2024.

Time Slots

Time Slots are a 5-minute time period where a group or an individual will go to a physical location to select their room for the upcoming academic year. These Time Slots are assigned by the Office of Residence Life and students will receive their Time Slot in their Simmons email from March 4th – March 6th.

Time Slots are organized by a specific priority order with Rising +1 and Seniors going first, Rising Juniors going second, and Rising Sophomores going next. ORL uses the Enrollment term listed in Workday to determine the student’s designation in this process. For example, if a student is listed as a Fall 2023 admit in Workday, they will be a Rising Sophomore in the Room Selection process. The selection order within enrollment terms will be randomized.

If a student is not available during their time slot they can have someone in their roommate group select for them. If all individuals in a roommate group cannot make it, the Office of Residence Life will select for the group via the Proxy form which will be sent to those eligible to participate in Room Selection in mid-March.

If a student has already been placed via the Housing Accommodation Process or they joined someone with an earlier time slot, they do not need to attend their timeslot. If they cannot make their timeslot, but want to adjust their assignment, they will need to utilize the proxy form for ORL to adjust their assignment space.

Roommate Group Consent and Verification Form

The Roommate Group Consent and Verification form is a form that all members of a roommate group must fill out. The form will be sent to Housing Applicants in late early March, once students have been alerted of their participation status, and can be submitted in person to the Office of Residence Life or via email to [email protected] from Thursday, March 7, 2024 – Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 5 pm. A Roommate Group will only need to fill out one form but can submit updated forms if there are any changes until 5 pm on Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 5 pm.

The Roommate Group Consent and Verification form serves as consent for all members of the group to live together and for all members of the group to be able to pick a room for the group. ORL uses this form to verify that all roommate group participants have an active housing application on file and have been selected to participate in Room Selection. Submission of the form is not a guarantee that a roommate group will remain intact as the roommate group may be too large for the room types we have available at the time of the roommate group’s best Time Slot.

If a roommate group needs to break up at the time of their earliest Time Slot, due to there being no availability of their room type that fits the number of occupants, all individuals cannot benefit from the earliest Time Slot if the group is recalibrated. Below is an example of a group breaking up:

Residents A, B, C, and D want to room together in a 4-person suite in Evans (limited suites available). Resident A has the earliest time slot of the 4-person group, then Resident B, Resident C, and Resident D in descending order. The group shows up to their selection time slot and realizes all suites, even the 4 person suites, have been selected by people before them. They choose to break up into two groups (A & C and B & D). Residents A & C can select the time of Resident A’s timeslot, but Residents B & D have to come back at Resident B’s time slot. Their new goal is to respectively be in two doubles on the same floor. Resident B & D can no longer benefit from Resident A’s time slot because the groups have been recalibrated

Proxy Form

The Proxy form serves as permission for the Office of Residence Life to place students if none of the members of the roommate group can attend their earliest Time Slot.

Planning

Room Selection is an active process and ORL highly suggests that students plan accordingly. Students have to have a clear understanding of the process and read all communication sent by ORL, review the resources (listed below), create multiple backup plans, and have clear conversations with their roommate groups.

Students may also fall into multiple categories in this process, for example, they may be admitted to a Living-Learning Community and have an eligible accommodation on file with OAS. In this case, we may not have enough rooms that meet their accommodations on the floors that are hosting the LLCs and the student will need to choose which avenue they want to pursue. Or students may be admitted to multiple LLCs and they will need to make a choice.

Room Selection Days

Room Selection Days will occur on weekdays during business hours from Monday, March 25, 2024, to Friday, April 5, 2024.

On the day and time of your (or the earliest time within your roommate group) Room Selection Time Slot, the individual or roommate group will come to a predetermined location to select their room (Historically, we have hosted these days within the Office of Residence Life). Each Time Slot is 5 minutes long, so individuals/ roommate groups need to be prompt. If students miss their time slot, the Residence Life proxy will select their room for them at their designated time. There will be a professional staff member from the Office of Residence Life to assist in answering questions. You cannot change your room selection after your timeslot. That includes going to another roommate’s timeslot. Once a roommate group has selected their room, all other time slots for that group are considered void.

If a student is studying abroad during the Spring of 2024 and has the best time of the roommate group, the individual can zoom into the selection time, but it needs to be pre-arranged or a roommate can select for the student studying abroad.

Guaranteed Housing Categories

Second Year In Housing Guarantee

Students who are entering their second year at Simmons, who previously lived on campus in each semester of their first year, are guaranteed a bed on the residence campus, provided they meet the published Room Selection deadlines. This guarantee will only apply to first-year students entering their second year. This is not a requirement (like it is for first-year students) and it will not apply to transfer students entering their second year or current commuter students. Transfer students and commuter students are, of course, eligible to participate in the general Room Selection process. For the upcoming housing cycle, applicants who wish to tap into this guarantee must have lived on for the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 semesters.

Simmons Distinguished Scholars

Simmons Distinguished Scholars are guaranteed housing for all four years of their Simmons University experience. The Office of Residence Life is working with this population to ensure that they have housing for the upcoming academic year.

Simmons Distinguished Scholars still have to meet all deadlines to be eligible for this guarantee. If Simmons Distinguished Scholars do not fill out the Housing Application before its closing, we will no longer reserve a space for them during the Room Selection process but Simmons Distinguished Scholars will be prioritized on the Housing Waitlist.

Returning Student Housing Waitlist Application

The Returning Student Housing Waitlist Application will open on April 9th at 9 am on the Housing Portal for those who were not selected to participate in Room Selection.

We will provide housing assignments to students by submission date and time when vacancies open but will give priority to Simmons Distinguished Scholars who miss the original deadline.

Any student who applies before the application closing, but is not eligible to participate in Room Selection will need to reapply when the Housing Waitlist Application opens.

Room Selection Resources

Room Selection Information Sessions – The Office of Residence Life held 4 Room Selection Information Sessions for students to learn more information on the Room Selection Process, Room Types, Roommate Groups, etc. For students who would like to review the presentation, you can do so here.
Pair Fair – For students looking for a roommate, the Office of Residence Life will be hosting a Pair Fair in the private room in Bartol Dining Hall, on March 12th from 5 PM – 7 PM. Students will need to utilize a meal swipe to attend.
Floor Plans – Floor Plans are up-to-date and can assist in planning!
Available Rooms Document – The Available Rooms Document will be linked on the Housing Portal to plan for Room Selection Days. The document will be updated daily but is not considered a living document.