Housing Selection Process

Who participates?

• Students who do not meet the criteria for commuter status and plan to return in the fall;
• Students who are currently studying away and plan to take classes on campus in the fall;
• Students who currently live off campus, but would like to live on campus. These students should contact the Residence Life & Housing office to inform them of their desire to participate in the housing selection process by emailing reslife@roanoke.edu or calling 540-375-2308. 

Housing Selection Schedule:

End of March through first week of April

TBA-Portal Opens (Current Students)

TBA-Time Tickets Go Out

TBA-Housing Selection Begins

Check Your Email!

Eligible students will be emailed their selection time slot(s). These are assigned based on the total number of credits completed by the end of December, with earlier time slots being assigned to students who have completed more credits. Please use caution because once Housing Selection Week begins and rooms are selected, the assignments cannot be cancelled or changed. The portal will officially close at 5:00 PM on the Friday of Housing Selection week.   

How to Prepare

• Sign-on and complete your personal and profile information.
• Read and submit the housing agreement.
• Search for potential roommates, make or join a roommate group so that when your time slot opens, you are ready to choose your room. Hint: It helps to have your group member who has the earliest time slot / highest number of credits.
• Do your research on the various residence halls that you hope to live in. Students usually start doing this early on!
   

Roomates and Suitemates

Once you get your email from ResLife, you can find roommates for the upcoming year through the Housing Portal.  If you already know who you want to live with, you both need to mutually agree to live together through the portal. 

There are several ways you can search for people:

• You can search for specific people by selecting Roommate Search by Details from the Roommate Groups page.  You can search for people using their names. Hint: Make sure you know the correct spelling or it will not be able to find them.
• You can search for people based on what they have written in their Lifestyle Preferences profile by selecting Roommate Search by Details from the Roommate Groups page.  Enter a word that you’d like to be in other profiles, and the portal will search all students who used that word.  You can then read entire profiles and see how similar others’ answers are to your preferences.

Important to note:

• The housing portal will only display people when they are eligible to be your roommate.  Roommates must be current students of the same sex assigned at birth. Also, if a person is in a roommate group, they will not be displayed in any roommate search.
• When you are searching for roommates, you will see a percentage displayed for each potential roommate.  The higher the percentage, the more similar your answers on the Lifestyle Preferences.  Students have reported having successful roommate matches with percentages beginning around 50%. If someone chose to fill out a roommate description, that information will also be shown when you view their profile.  
• If you find someone you think could be a good fit for you as a roommate/suitemate, you can send them a message through the housing portal that will be sent to their Roanoke email.  If you have created a roommate group and think you’d be good as roommates, you can request that they join your roommate group.  

I already know who I want to live with.  How do we make sure that we pick a unit together?
One of you will have to create a roommate group within housing portal.  This will make them the group leader.  When someone creates a roommate group, they come up with a group name and password.  There are two ways to have new members join a group:  a) sharing the name and password with them so they can add themselves within the portal or b) request them as a roommate and they accept the request.  People cannot be assigned to the same unit if they are not in the same roommate group.  

What can the leader of a roommate group do?
The leader is the person responsible for creating the group name and password, as well as sharing it with desired roommates/suitemates.  The leader of the roommate group can also:

• Message a potential roommate/suitemate. All messages are sent to a student’s Roanoke email.
• Delete the whole group, which means that the former members will not be able to select a unit together and the group will no longer exist.
• Select a unit on behalf of the whole group--the group leader should do this only if they have the earliest time slot of all the group members.
• The group leader also is sent an email when someone new joins their group.

What can a member of roommate group do?
A member is anyone who has joined a roommate group by entering the group name and password.  A group member can:

• Message any other group members.  All messages are sent to a student’s Roanoke email.
• Delete themselves from the group.
• Select a unit on behalf of the whole group--the group member with the earliest selection of all the members should do the unit selection.

Can only the roommate group leader pick a unit?
No.  Any member of the roommate group can assign a space to everyone in the group.  

NOTE: You cannot be in more than one roommate group, and you cannot create a new roommate group if you are already in one. You will have to leave your original roommate group in order to join or create a new roommate group.