We're committed to a residential learning environment that requires and guarantees on-campus student housing for all four years.
Getting Ready for Housing Selection
Choose Your Housing Option
As students progress through their living-learning experience at Colgate they have a variety of housing options to select from dependent on whether they are a sophomore, junior, or senior. Take a look at your options and begin planning as early as possible.
Some housing options require students to participate in the housing lottery, here is some helpful information and an outline of this process.
Enter the process with multiple room, suit, apartment or townhouse options in mind, and plan for several scenarios — many other people are selecting their housing as well and you may not get your first choice.
Only select rooms that you can fill — for example, do not select a three-person apartment unless you have a group of three.
Selections are final. Once you select a room, you may not reverse the selection, and participation in any subsequent process will not be necessary or permitted.
You will receive a notification from the Housing Portal when you have been assigned a lottery time. Log in to the Housing Portal to view your selection time.
Each participant in a lottery process is randomly assigned a selection time on the Housing Portal. This time dictates the order in which individuals or groups may select a room, suite, apartment, or townhouse.
There is a common misconception that students only have moments to make a housing selection, and this is not the case. Once a selection time is made active, students have until the end of the lottery process to select housing.
Selection times belong to the person they were originally assigned to, and cannot be traded or given away to another student.
Choose your roommate group: After discussing and confirming who will be in your roommate group you will need to officially form the group in the Housing Portal.
Select a group leader: The group will need to choose one person to be their group leader in order to form the group in the Housing Portal.
The group leader does not need to be the person with the best selection time; the group will adopt the selection time that is best among all those in a group.
By default, the person who creates the roommate group becomes the group leader.
Share your roommate code: The group leader will need everyone’s roommate codes in order for them to invite you to join a roommate group.
Roommate codes can be found on your Housing Portal homepage on the top right under a student’s first and last name.
Each student is assigned a unique roommate code.
Group leaders form the roommate group: The group leader must log onto their housing portal, log into the lottery, and click on the “find someone you know” tab. You will then individually enter the roommate codes of the students who wish to be a part of your group.
Accept your roommate request: Everyone must accept the roommate request to be included in the group.
Log onto your Housing Portal account and check your mail (next to your roommate code).
Click on the mailbox to receive the request. Be sure to respond by accepting.
You will be able to see your roommate group in the “My Group” box
The housing software system does not permit the same person to re-invite the same people if for some reason those people leave a group. If you need assistance re-forming a group, please contact Residential Life and we will assist you as soon as we can.
Students are able to view the available rooms ahead of their housing selection lottery time. We recommend you periodically check-in ahead of your lottery time to see what’s available.
In the lottery, go to the “select a room” tab
You can then sort by occupancy of rooms, building, and floor
Favorite a room by clicking on the star next to the room. This puts the room in your “cart,” and allows you to find it more easily when the lottery becomes active.
More Housing Information
Housing Accommodations
Students who are seeking housing accommodation should refer to the Accessible housing guidelines. Incoming first-year students are expected to submit an accessible housing accommodation application along with their housing preference form. Upper-class students are expected to submit the form by date listed on the application, which typically is near the end of February.
Gender-Inclusive Housing
The Office of Residential Life is committed to providing a living environment that is welcoming to all gender identities. Students may indicate in their housing application whether they have a preference for roommate(s) of a different gender. Campus housing options include a variety of gender-inclusive rooms such as suites, apartments, townhouses.
Break and Summer Housing
Students have the option to reside in on-campus housing during the summer, school breaks, and between fall and spring semester.
