We are aware of many concerns regarding housing selection for the next academic year. For the 2023-24 academic year, we had over 200 seniors apply to live on campus for 75 spaces and 1,075 rising juniors/rising sophomores sign their housing agreement with an intent to live on campus. Of those approximately 1,300 students, close to 1,100 continuing students are required to live on campus, based on CC’s three-year residential requirement. The residential requirement is intended to help students build connections on campus, navigate resources, and prepare students to eventually move off campus. This requirement is through a student’s junior year/first three years on campus.

There is an incredibly high demand for apartment spaces among our student community. Our campus has a total of 400 apartment beds across the two main apartment communities, East Campus and Western Ridge. This equates to 85 apartments with varying room types and available occupancy. For 2023-24, we opened a few additional apartment spaces for housing selection that have not traditionally been available.

To prepare for apartment selection, we made two-thirds of the available apartments visible to juniors only. By doing so, it meant that students in a mixed group would not be able to select those spaces, nor would groups that were all rising sophomores. This decision was made based on feedback from senior housing selection requesting that seniors be able to live with their junior friends. Additionally, this provided a safeguard against any miscoding of class standing. 

Historically, we have always had sophomores living in apartments. We ask that students form groups and do not restrict groups to only one class. This year, we had one restriction to not have rising seniors in apartment groups since all senior space allocations were distributed in the fall. We did this to ensure we had the most apartments available for those required to live on campus. 

Some sophomores get into apartments because they are part of a mixed year group. Some apartments that are less desirable to rising juniors (ones where there is a double room as part of the setup), or larger apartments can sometimes be available for sophomores. Adding to the complexity is the type of apartments we have available. Studio, one-, two-, and eight-bedroom apartments are not as numerous as four-bedroom units. Thus, there are many reasons why someone might not be able to get an apartment despite a better timeslot.

We’ve received questions about the transparency of the housing selection process. Throughout Block 6 our team provided multiple information sessions on the selection process and how to navigate StarRez housing portal. Additional insight and questions were answered at these sessions as well.  Aside from these information sessions, multiple emails have gone out and our website has explained the process.

All students who did not receive an apartment will go through the following next steps:

Sincerely,

Assistant Vice President for the Residential Experience