Carnegie Mellon University
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Frequently Asked Questions: Room Selection

If you have a question that you don't see answered here, and you weren't able to find information elsewhere on this site, please email our Room Assignments team. Please note that all information here pertains only to Room Selection 2024 and may not be applicable during future Room Selection processes.

No, only current Housing and Fraternity/Sorority residents are eligible to participate in Room Selection, although off-campus students CAN be pulled into fraternity or sorority house if required to live in the chapter house.

Otherwise, off-campus residents are eligible to apply for the housing waitlist application, which opens at the same time as the Room Selection application does. The difference is that waitlist applicants cannot request Room Selection applicants as roommates, and waitlist offers are made after Room Selection has concluded, based on the remaining available spaces, and then throughout the summer on a rolling basis.

The signing of the Housing Contract is a required step in the Room Selection application in order to ensure that all individuals who will be receiving Room Selection timeslots have already agreed to all of the terms and conditions within that contract. Applicants who have not selected or were not assigned (by a roommate) to a room as of 9 a.m. on Monday, March 4, 2024 will have their application automatically canceled by Housing staff and will not be bound to the Housing Contract. Your Housing Contract goes into effect at the moment that you are assigned to a room - whether via self-selection or by being assigned by a confirmed roommate group member. The Housing Contract is legally binding and cancellations will only be permitted for limited, approved reasons such as withdrawing from the university, leave of absence.

If you would like to read the Housing Contract in advance of starting your application, you can read a PDF version on the Policies and Forms page.

In general, housing is only offered to full-time students for a full academic year (fall and spring semester.)

Students who only need Spring 2025 housing can apply via the Spring Only 2025 application and should not participate in Room Selection. Spring only offers are made in mid-to-late December.

Students who are looking for Fall 2024 only housing can email rmassign@andrew.cmu.edu to be added to a Fall Only waitlist. We will only offer Fall Only contracts if a significant amount of housing space exists following the conclusion of the Room Selection process and all full-year applicants have had an opportunity to select. Generally, fall only contracts are only offered to students who are leaving the university for the spring semester for an approved reason (i.e. graduating in December, studying abroad in the spring, etc.)  Fall only contracts are not offered to students looking to move off-campus for the spring semester.

Due to anticipated high demand, Forbes Beeler Apartments will be filled through a special selection process. The special process will allow each 4-person group that receives a selection timeslot, to select one-half of an eight-occupant apartment unit.

The deadline to apply for Forbes Beeler is noon on February 21, and selection day for selected groups will be Thursday, February 22, 2024.

All important details, dates, and information about the Forbes Beeler Special Selection Process is available here.

Single rooms are extremely popular, limited in availability, and are thus hard to come by. While we have added single rooms to our inventory through the newest buildings, the majority of our units are still double and/or triple bedroom spaces. We encourage all Room Selection applicants to plan to select with at least one roommate, when possible.

No. Retention - or same room sign-up - is not an option for any resident, regardless of the building they are living in currently.  We want to give all students the same opportunity through the random lottery/timeslot process to have an opportunity for the most desired buildings and room types.

There will be Open Houses for most buildings in both the fall and spring semesters, with dates and times to be announced on the Room Selection website. During an Open House, you will have the ability to view a sample room within the building, which may or may not be similar to other rooms within that building. (In some cases, the room being shown is an RA or CA room, which is not necessarily representative of the standard rooms in any given building.)

If you know for sure that you will be studying abroad during the Fall 2024 semester, you should not participate in Room Selection. Instead, complete the "Spring 2025 Only" application through the Housing Portal before you leave campus at the end of the spring 2024 semester. Be sure to select "Return from Study Abroad" as your reason for application. You will be guaranteed a housing assignment when you return in the spring.

If you're not sure whether or not you've been accepted into a study abroad program, then you are welcome to participate in Room Selection to secure a room for the fall semester. However, you will be held to the cancellation deadlines, and will be responsible for paying the $400 housing cancellation fee that will be charged to your fall 2024 student account. Once you have received your student abroad acceptance and registered with the Office of International Education, please email Room Assignments to coordinate your housing cancellation so that you are not responsible for the full cost of your housing assignment. You will still be responsible for paying the $400 housing cancellation fee on your fall bill.

No, residents should not participate in Room Selection if their hope/intention is to live off-campus. Once signed, students are committed to their Housing Contract for the full academic year (both fall and spring semester), unless they are leaving the university for an approved reason, such as taking a leave of absence, studying abroad, withdrawing from the university, etc. There is no opportunity to cancel in order to move off-campus, once your housing agreement has been signed.

Students who are hoping to live off-campus, but are ultimately unsuccessful can still apply for campus housing later though, through the Housing Waitlist application. Waitlist applicants are assigned after Room Selection, on a rolling basis throughout the summer, as space becomes available. Please note that due to limited number of housing options available following Room Selection, generally we are unable to accommodate roommate requests for waitlist applicants.

Students are required to be full-time enrolled undergraduate students in order to live in campus housing.  Therefore, students who will be part-time for fall 2024 are not automatically eligible for Room Selection. If you have a special circumstance and you'd like to be considered for a possible exception, please email Room Assignments with more information about your specific situation.

No, graduate students (enrollment class of 10 or 20) are not eligible for Room Selection. However, please email rmassign@andrew.cmu.edu if you are interested in living in university housing. In the unlikely event that we are able to make housing available to graduate students, we will contact you.

It's important to note that Room Selection changes every year and it's best practice to use this Room Selection website as the official source for all information regarding Room Selection. The Room Selection process changes every year, and what was true last year may not be true this year.

If you still have questions that you weren't able to answer through this site, or if you hear something and you want to know whether or not it's true, please email Room Assignments with details about your question.

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Virtual Room Selection 2024 Information Session

Coming soon...

Learn about what's new for Room Selection 2024, including eligibility, housing options, phases, resources and more.