Applying with a Group in Graduate Housing

If you want to live on campus with one to three friends, you may apply for housing in a group. Applying as a group gives friends the best opportunity of being assigned together—especially if everyone in the group has the same gender, student status and assignment priority level.

Group Applications

• Students may apply for housing as a group during the first-round Lottery and Waiting List rounds.

• Groups cannot be accommodated during the Continuous Assignments rounds.

• All group members must be seeking housing for the same quarter.

• Group size can consist of two to four students and can be a mix of men and women.

• There is no guarantee that all members will be assigned to the same residence, or to the same room or apartment within a residence. During Winter and Spring Quarters when wholly vacant apartments are rarely available, you may be split between residences.

• It is very unlikely that groups containing both first-year students and continuing students will be assigned together because they do not have the same assignment priority.

Coed Groups and Gender-Neutral Housing

By default, coed groups will be assigned to same-sex apartments near each other. Coed groups who wish to live together within the same apartment should submit a Gender-Neutral Housing Room Assignment Request on Axess once they are assigned to the same type of housing. Since most shared housing on campus is assigned as same-sex apartments there are certain conditions that apply to Gender-Neutral Housing:

• Students must apply as a group

• Select their own roommates from students assigned to the residence

• Completely fill an apartment

• If a roommate in a gender-neutral apartment leaves in the middle of the year, students may be required to move in order to return the space to single-gender

• No students will be assigned to a mixed-gender apartment without requesting specifically requesting that assignment

More information is available on the Gender-Neutral Options web page.

Application

All group members should submit an individual housing application in Axess with the group information.

• 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.

• Choose a name that is not easy to duplicate. The name and password should include five to eight characters, at least one alpha and one numeric character and no symbols—for instance, gr8music and play4us. Letters are case sensitive.

• 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.

• You should decide whether or not to use the group retention feature which allows you to move to a lower preference in order to keep your group together should there not be space in a higher preference.

• All group applicants must list the same residences in the exact same order for the group feature to work. Listing different choices may cause the group to become split at the point where the choices diverge.

• 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

Groups are required to set a group retention level on their application. The “Group Retention” feature is only available for groups applying for the first-round Lottery. Groups applying for a Waiting List round are not able to use group retention. The group retention feature will not work if you do not have the same assignment priority so new graduate students and continuing graduate students cannot use group retention. For summer-only assignments, group retention will not work for enrolled students applying with un-enrolled students, as enrolled students have a higher priority for summer housing.

The group retention feature will override any residence priorities that individual group members have. For that reason if you are a law student and are applying in a group with a non-law student you should not elect to use group retention if you want to keep your priority to the Munger Graduate Residence. If you are a law student applying in a group with other law students, you can use the group retention while retaining your priority to the Munger Graduate Residence.

Group retention allows a 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 eight, 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 5th choice and then break into two groups of two through choice 10, all group members should set group retention to 10. After choice 5, the first group of two should list different choices than the second group of two.

Changing groups or deciding not to be part of a group

You 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 (first round only), you will be assigned through the OAE, but should still file an application. See specific information on the Medical Accommodations page.

• If you are a first-year student who is applying with a continuing student, you should not use group retention because you have different priority levels.

• If some members of your group are law students using their priority to the Munger Graduate Residence and others are not, you may also be split as the priority does not transfer to non-law students in the group.

Filing a Split-group Petition

Split-group petitions are only accepted after the first-round Lottery 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 the members selected different group retention choices

• All members have the same assignment priority

• All members listed the same choices in the same order

• All members petitioned by the deadline

Specific Apartment Assignments

Once you and your group members are assigned to the same type of housing the Housing Front Desk Coordinator for that area will try to assign you within the same apartment. If that is not possible they will try to assign you apartments nearby within the same neighborhood. If you are applying with a coed group, please refer to the coed group information above.

Last modified Tue, 26 Mar, 2013 at 16:06