Returning Student Housing Process

Below is a lot of information regarding our housing selection process that occurs in March - April when our current First-Year, Sophomore, Junior, and Frances Perkins students select their housing for the following year (2025-2026). If you are anticipating studying abroad or taking a leave in Fall 2025 you should not participate in this housing selection process. Please take the time to thoroughly read the entire page. The Office of Residential Life will also be hosting a variety of information sessions where students can come and ask all their housing selection questions.

Register for the information session on February 13, 2025 5-5:45pm in Blanchard Great Room.

Check out this Step by Step Guide for our Housing Lottery.

Eligibility

To find out if you are eligible to participate in our housing processes, check your clearance status in Residence under "my account". "F" means you are fully cleared and ready to participate. "N" means you are not eligible and the office which has a hold on your account will be listed. Please contact the office listed to figure out how to release the hold. Holds can be from the Dean of Studies Office, Health Services, Counseling Services, and Student Financial Services. Please note that having only a hold from Financial Services will not prevent you from participating in the housing lottery. Students with an "N" from Dean of Studies, Health Services, and/or Counseling Services will not be able to opt-in to any of the housing lotteries. The Office of Residential Life does not have additional information about these holds and cannot remove them for you.

If you do not see the option to opt-in to any lottery process it means you have a hold and should not be part of any roommate groups.

The first day that you will be able to opt into a lottery process is March 18.

Please note that once you are cleared, clearance takes about 24 hours to appear in Residence. Clearance happens on a rolling basis so you could be cleared one day and not the next.

Your eligibility to participate in any housing processes described below will be based on your clearance by March 28, 2025, at 12 noon. If you miss the opt-in deadline for one process you can opt-in to the next process you are eligible for.

Clearance

All students must be cleared by the offices of Student Financial Services, Registrar, Health Services, Counseling Services, Dean of Studies, and Residential Life by March 28, 2025, at noon (12:00 pm). Having only a hold from Student Financial Services will not prevent students from participating in the housing lottery. Students who are not cleared by these departments will not be eligible to participate in the Lottery. Questions regarding your clearance can be checked on My Account in Residence.

Reclassification

Students must have the appropriate number of credits to move with their class. Students who want to be reclassified must contact the Registrar's Office directly. All reclassifications must be completed by March 28, 2025. Reclassifications after March 28, 2025 will not be accepted for purposes of the Housing Lottery.

Room Cancellation Fee

If you choose a room through a housing lottery process you have until June 15 to withdraw from on campus housing without the charge of a $200 Room Cancellation Fee. Should you cancel your housing after June 15 you will be charged a $200 Room Cancellation Fee.

Housing Accommodations

Given the individual needs of accommodations, students who have requested to use their approved housing accommodations through the Disability Services Office by completing the Housing Accommodation Request Form by the deadline on, February 25, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. will be emailed directly by Residential Life by March 14, 2025 regarding which housing process they will need to complete. Any student who missed the February 25 deadline, or was not approved for housing accommodations prior to this deadline, should proceed through the housing lottery processes open to all Mount Holyoke College students. The Housing Accommodation Request form will reopen April 25 those who missed the deadline for returning students.

Frances Perkins Scholars

FPs have their own housing process, and we will be in touch with you directly regarding your room selection on March 17. Your response will be due March 26 at noon.

Living Learning Communities (LLC)

The LLC application in Residence will open on February 6 and be due on February 20. LLC Applicants will receive notice of their acceptance into these communities by March 6. This email will explain your housing selection process based on the decision that is made. LLCs will have single, double, and triple rooms available, and you can apply for LLCs if you have housing accommodations. Check out the LLC Webpage for more information on which communities will be available. An announcement in Residence will note the location of the LLCs for 25-26 academic year.

Reminder: If a student is selected to be in a Living Learning Community, the student must select a room in the Living Learning Community Lottery. They will not be able to participate in any other lottery process (Seniors Singles, Suites/Apartment Lottery or Doubles/Triples lottery). Students will be administratively placed in a room in the Living Learning Community based on their matching profiles if they don’t select a room on their own and will have the option of going through the room change request process over the summer.

Example: Red Pegasus ‘26 is a rising senior and is selected into the Arts LLC. By the time it's their turn to select a room on the floor, there are no singles left and Red Pegasus decides to not select a room. The Office of Residential Life will place Red Pegasus ‘26 in a vacant space in the LLC based on their matching profile and the beds available on the floor. Red Pegasus ‘26 will not be able to participate in the Senior Singles Lottery. They will have to wait until the room change request process over the summer to change rooms.

Why: These spaces are hard to fill with students once all lottery processes are concluded and we want to ensure that the students who are applying for the LLCs are doing so because they genuinely desire to be part of those communities and actively participate in them.

Housing Lotteries

• Senior Suites & Apartments: Open to seniors only. Must have a roommate group of all seniors only. Must have a roommate group the same size as the suite or apartment one is trying to get.
• Mixed, JR & Soph Suites & Apartments: Open to seniors, juniors, and sophomores. Must have a roommate group the same size as the suite or apartment one is trying to get.
• Senior Singles: Open to seniors only (no roommate groups allowed)
• Singles Accommodation Lottery: Open to juniors & sophomores with an approved housing accommodation only (no roommate groups allowed) This lottery is invite only.
• Doubles/Triples:Open to seniors, juniors, and sophomores. Roommate groups will be prioritized, but you don’t need a group to participate.

Opt-in

Each lottery phase has an opt-in process; students will need to opt-in to each phase that they wish to participate in. Students may only opt-in to one phase at a time. Except for the LLC lotteries, following each phase, if a student does not choose a room, the Office of Residential Life will change the student’s status to opt-out so that they may choose another process to opt-in. For example, a group of rising seniors may want to try for a suite, but they do not get one, the Office will change the status of all the students in that group to opt-out so that they can disband the group and opt-in to the seniors singles process.

Needing a Proxy

If you are unable to select your own housing, you may request that a Residential Life professional staff member select your room for you by filling out the Proxy Request Form by the opt in deadline of the process you are going through. In order to select your room via proxy, you will need a minimum of 15 favorited rooms (there is no maximum limit). If at your selection time, none of your favorite rooms are available, Residential Life staff will not select a room. You will be asked to fill out the Housing Request/Room Change Request Form and will be assigned a room over the summer. The Housing Request/Room Change Request Form will be available April 25, 2025 and will be due June 1, 2025.

Favorites

You'll be able to make a list of "favorites" of the available rooms so you can have a list of all the options you'd like to consider when your selection time arrives. As rooms are selected throughout the process, they will disappear from your favorites list. Please note that the favorites list does not place rooms in any priority ranking. You will need to prioritize your list outside of Residence.

You will only be able to see rooms specific to that lottery process. For example, only singles are in the singles lottery, only doubles and triples are in the doubles/triples lottery.

Rooms in Lottery

Please note that all rooms are not available for selection. Rooms are held for various reasons, including housing accommodations, facilities concerns and for the incoming class. We will be holding more singles and singles with private bathrooms given the increase of this accommodation. Residence also tells you the occupancy of a room; for example, 3 of 3 beds available mean the room is a triple. You can review the floor plans in my.mtholyoke under Student Resources on the Division of Student Life resource page.

Roommate Groups

You can also create a roommate group within the system to make sure you are sharing a room with the person you wish to live with. The ability to create roommate groups opens on March 18. All members of your roommate group must opt-in to the same process, just because the leader of the roommate group opts-in to a process does not mean the entire roommate group is in the process, you must all individually opt-in to the same process. If you receive a request to be roommates, you must reply to the link in the email. Do not hit ‘reply’ as you will be replying to Residential Life and not the request.

Updating Your Matching Profile

As an incoming student, you filled out a matching profile that assisted Residential Life in matching you with a roommate. As your time on campus progresses, your answers to these questions have most likely changed. Use the “Update Roommate Preferences 25-26” link in Residence to update your profile. We recommend all students maintain an updated profile, even if you have a roommate in mind or are hoping to live in a single. Students looking for a roommate can search for others that match their preferences.

Off-Campus Housing

Some students sincerely believe that the experience of living off-campus, in housing of their own choosing, will be of benefit to them. Applications to live off-campus for the 2025–2026 academic year will be available on February 14, 2025 and must be submitted to the Office of Residential Life by 5 p.m. on February 28, 2025. Please visit the Off-Campus Housing Webpage for more details.

Students who wish to change to commuter status and live at home with their parent/garden should submit the Commuter Exemption Form.

Suites & Apartments

The residence hall suites and apartments offer students an opportunity for greater independence, and as such, these placements are typically available to seniors as they prepare to transition to independent life post graduation. They are chosen by current Mount Holyoke students through the annual housing lottery process. Students wishing to live in one of these spaces must fill the apartment/suite completely as a group and must keep the apartment/suite filled. If one or more residents of the apartment/suite leaves, it is the responsibility of the remaining apartment/suite residents to find another person to move into the space. Failure to do so could result in the remaining residents in the apartment/suite being reassigned to other spaces on campus and the apartment/suite offered to other students. Students with housing accommodations can opt into this process along with their peers. The suites and apartments are not part of the Disability Services placement process, this means that a student with an accommodation does NOT get a priority selection time. Selection times for all students are random. At this time, the following suites and apartments will be available for the 25-26 year. Suites are rooms with a common space and some suites have private bathrooms that all occupants share and are responsible for cleaning.

Suites

Apartments

Apartments are rooms with a common space, kitchen and private bathroom that all occupants share and are responsible for cleaning. These apartments don’t have individual bedrooms.

Apartments in Wooden Structures

These apartments come with full kitchens.

92 College Street: is a 2 person apartment on the edge of campus. This apartment has two bedrooms (singles). This is considered an on campus apartment and students must be on the meal plan. Limited parking is available on a first come basis. Students must have a MHC parking permit. Gorse parking lot and the Dickinson parking lot is also available. Students must have a roommate group of two students to be able to choose this apartment. There is no laundry available in the house, students will have access to Abbey and Buckland in order to do laundry.

94 College Street: is an 8 person apartment on the edge of campus. This apartment has 5 bedrooms ( 3 doubles and 2 singles). This is considered an on campus apartment and students must be on the meal plan. Limited parking is available on a first come basis. Students must have a MHC parking permit. Gorse parking lot and the Dickinson parking lot is also available. Students must have a roommate group of eight students to be able to choose this apartment. There is no laundry available in the house, students will have access to Abbey and Buckland in order to do laundry.

1 Faculity Road: is a 6 person apartment across from Dickinson House. This apartment has 6 bedrooms (singles). This is considered an on campus apartment and students must be on the meal plan. There is no parking at the house, however students with a parking permit may park in the Dickinson parking lot across the street. Students must have a roommate group of six to be able to choose this apartment. There is no laundry available in the house, students will have access to Dickinson House in order to do laundry.

Lottery Phases for Fall 2025 Selection