Highlights

• Students may apply for housing as a group during the Draw and Waitlist rounds.
• Groups cannot be accommodated during the Continuous Assignments round.
• All group members must be seeking housing for the same quarter.
• Group size can consist of two to eight students and can be a mix of men and women.
• There is no guarantee that groups will be accommodated. Larger groups are less likely to be assigned to the same residence as smaller groups.

Application Numbers

If students are applying for housing through the Draw, they will be asked to select a tier level (1-3). Each tier level equals a range of application numbers and students are randomly assigned one application number from that range. See the Draw section for more information about Tier levels. All group members must select the same tier level in order to remain a group. Group members will be assigned the same application number.

Students applying for a Waiting List round after the Draw deadline are assigned a sequential number based on the date their application was received. Because all group members must have the same application number, group members applying during a Waitlist Round are automatically assigned the highest (worst) application number among the group’s members.

Application

When filling out the housing application in Axess, group members will need to enter a username and password.

• The group member to submit a housing application first creates the group by entering the group name and password. . This person becomes the group leader.
• Subsequently, each member of the group then files his or her own housing application and selects to join the group by entering the same group name and group password.  Please allow a few seconds for the group information to post before the next person attempts to join.
• Choose a name that is not easy to duplicate, is a minimum of five characters, and contains at least one letter and one number (no symbols allowed).  Letters are case sensitive.

Residence Choices

All group applicants must list the same residences in the exact same order. Failure to do so will likely cause the group to become split.

The housing application gives group members the option to copy their group leader’s list of choices. Please note: If the group leader changes his/ her choices after a group member has copied the leader’s choices that group member must go back and recopy the group leader’s choices. Otherwise, the old choices will remain on the group member’s application.

Group Retention

The “Group Retention” feature is only available for groups applying for Autumn Quarter housing though the Draw and these Draw groups are required to set a group retention level on their applications. Groups applying for a Waiting List round are not able to use group retention.

Group retention allows a Draw group to indicate through how many choices they would like the assignments program to keep their group together. For example, if a group of four students were to set their retention rate to 8, the computer would try to assign the entire group to their first choice. If there were not four spaces available in that choice, the program would try to assign the entire group to their second choice. If there were not four spaces available in the second choice, the computer would move on through subsequent choices, trying to get the entire group into each choice. If the computer goes through the first eight choices and is unable to get the entire group into any of those choices, the computer moves on to the ninth choice but group retention ends. If there is one vacancy in the group’s ninth choice, one person would be assigned to that residence and the computer would move on to the remaining three member’s tenth choice. Group retention allows students to stay together through a select number of residence choices and then branch out on their own.

Group retention also allows large groups to split off into smaller groups. If a group of four wants to stay together through their 14th choice and then break into two groups of two through choice 20, all group members should set group retention to 20. After choice 14, the first group of two should list different choices than the second group of two.

Group retention only works if group members list the exact same choices in the exact same order. Once a group member lists a different choice from his/ her group mates, his/ her group retention is invalidated and the assignment program treats that group member as an individual.

Changing groups or deciding not to be part of a group

Students can change their applications until the application deadline, and can delete group information, change residence choices, and/or create or join a new group until the deadline.

Special Considerations

If you apply with a student who has applied for assignment through the Office of Accessible Education (Draw round only), you will need to be assigned through the OAE Draw and will not be able to join the main Draw.  See specific information on the Medical Accommodations page.

Filing a Split-group Petition

Split group petitions are only accepted after the Draw and Autumn Waitlist. If you are a member of a group that is split after one of these rounds and you want to be assigned to the same residence as your group mates, you may petition Housing Assignments by the Split Group Petition deadline – see Calendar and the Split-group Petition. Every attempt is made to reunite split groups by the start of Autumn Quarter, but only if:

• The group was not split because members selected different group retention choices
• All members have the same tier level (Draw only)
• All members listed the same choices in the same order
• All members petitioned by the deadline