Home ยป Section Three Assignment Policies and Procedures

Section Three: Assignment Policies and Procedures

Residence and Room Assignments

The Residence Agreement goes into effect when you are assigned a space in University housing and is not for a particular room or residence or type of housing. Assignment to a University residence or reassignment to a different residence (including but not limited to a different house within the same residence complex) is made only by Housing Assignments.

Undergraduate Residences

After the first round of the Draw, room assignments are normally made through an in-house procedure that is approved through Residential Education and Housing Assignments and led by Residential Education student staff and full-time staff.

Assignments after the first round are made by Residential Education and Student Housing staff based on vacancies. Gender-neutral/gender-inclusive room assignments are allowed in Terra, Enchanted Broccoli Forest, Narnia, Castaño, Mirrielees, and four-person suites in the Suites. These will take place during the in-house draw process. Students must select their own roommates from students assigned to the house in order to participate in the program. For specific information, see the Student Housing website.

Students who have signed up for theme, focus, or co-op houses must meet the eligibility requirements for the house and must participate in activities required by the house program. If they do not meet the eligibility or program requirements, they will be reassigned out of the house during the next reassignment round.

Graduate Residences

In graduate residences, specific room assignments are made by the Front Desk Coordinators in the Housing Front Desks. Gender-neutral/gender-inclusive room assignments are allowed in all graduate residences, and are made by request through your Housing Front Desk on a space-available basis. Students must select their own roommates from students assigned to the same residence in order to participate in the program. Any change in room assignments must be authorized by your Front Desk Coordinator.
 

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Reassignments

Students assigned in the first round of assignments may request reassignment in the autumn waiting list round, which is held in July. After July, students may request reassignments to another residence through Housing Assignments. Students in Undergraduate Housing must have a Residence Dean sign a request for reassignment.

In Graduate Housing, reassignments made for special circumstances, such as a Graduate Life Office Dean’s request, a request from the Office of Accessible Education, or serious facility related problems that cannot be rectified quickly, are given highest priority. Other reasonable requests for reassignment will be made as space becomes available.

There is an Administrative Fee of $200 for reassignments in undergraduate housing and a $300 Administrative Fee in graduate housing. These reassignments are made during the continuous assignment period after demand from students without housing has been met.

Requests to change rooms within an assigned residence are approved by the local residence office or Housing Front Desk. It is the student’s responsibility to notify Housing Assignments if such a request is granted. For emergency preparation, Student Housing needs to know the room assignment of each student living in campus housing.

In Single Student Housing, most rooms require shared occupancy, and by accepting an assignment, you are agreeing to communicate and live cooperatively with your roommate(s), to be respectful of their differences, and to agree on living habits. Students are not released from contract because of roommate conflicts. Students with roommate conflicts are expected to work with their roommates and their Residence Deans in Undergraduate Housing or Graduate Life Office Deans in Graduate Housing to resolve differences.

Mandatory Reassignments

The University reserves the right to reassign you to another room or residence at any time during the term of this agreement for any reason. In particular, you may be required to move:

  1. If the space to which you have been assigned is required for a student with a disability
  2. To consolidate spaces which will allow the gender conversion of a room as required to meet the undergraduate housing guarantee;
  3. If you are in a gender-neutral/gender-inclusive room and one of your roommates leaves, resulting in two or more individuals of opposite gender remaining in the room. Random students can only be assigned to single gender rooms or apartments
  4. To make your room available for renovation, for conversion to a different residence type or category, or for conference use; or
  5. To consolidate graduate or undergraduate students into fewer rooms. Graduate and undergraduate students may be assigned together.

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Staff Members Who are Pre-Assigned to Housing

If student staff members choose to resign from their positions before Autumn Quarter begins, they will be considered for housing only after all other students have received an assignment. This will be at the end of the continuous assignments round. If student staff are removed from or resign their position after they have moved into housing, they will be required to move out of their current residence and will be reassigned into an available space within their category of housing (e.g., female undergraduate, male graduate). They are not guaranteed housing that is similar to their assignment as a staff member (e.g., a single room on the Row).

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Fraternity and Sorority Assignments

All fraternity and sorority obligations described herein pertain to the fraternity and sorority group as a whole and, by extension, to each individual who elects to live in that fraternity or sorority, including boarders. Fraternity and sorority members recognize and agree that the organization has no entitlement to continued use of the residence assigned to the organization or to an alternative residence or other space. The agreement to assign a fraternity or sorority to a residence may be terminated at any time at the University’s discretion upon written notice to the chapter president.

Guaranteed Housing

The University requires and depends on housed fraternities and sororities to fill their rated housing spaces with enrolled undergraduate Stanford students who have guaranteed housing status in order to meet the University’s commitment of four guaranteed years of housing to incoming undergraduate students. As long as space is available, members of housed Greek organizations who are eligible for student housing and have guaranteed housing status are expected to live in the house designated for their chapter unless they have not, under the terms of the chapter Housing Preference Policy (HPP), been offered a space in the house. Fraternity and sorority members use a guaranteed year for each year they live on campus - whether in a fraternity house, sorority house, or a Draw-filled residence. If a fraternity or sorority member elects to live in a fraternity or sorority house for only a portion of a year, the entire year’s guarantee is relinquished, and tier usage is recorded as it is in Draw-filled houses.

When members pledge and live in a housed fraternity or sorority their sophomore year, Housing Assignments updates their housing records to note usage of their Draw number tiers one and two. They retain tier three to use in case they are required to enter the Draw at a later date. If, due to lack of space in the house, they apply to live in Draw-filled housing after living in a housed fraternity or sorority for one year, they will use tier three. If they are required to apply for Draw-filled housing for a second year, they can petition to have tier one or two returned.

Each housed fraternity and sorority must fill 100 percent of its approved and rated housing spaces with members (including pledges) of the fraternity and sorority for Autumn and Winter Quarters. The deadline for meeting this requirement is one week prior to the deadline to enter the Draw. Any house that fails to fill at least 75 percent of its rated housing spaces in any quarter is subject to immediate placement in the Draw.

During the academic year, it is the chapter’s responsibility to notify any members who will be pulled from Draw-filled housing back into the house in time to allow them to submit a Termination of Occupancy form by the appropriate deadline. (See “Termination of Agreement” in Section One). Members who submit a late Termination of Occupancy form will be billed the applicable Administrative Fee. It is up to the sorority or fraternity to decide whether to reimburse these members if the late Termination of Occupancy form was the fault of late notification from the chapter.

Each fraternity and sorority is responsible for filling all vacancies throughout the academic year that may occur in the group’s residence with students who are eligible for University housing and who have guaranteed housing status. If a student lives in a fraternity or sorority house as a boarder, the assignment may be allowed on a quarterly basis. If reassignment is required during the academic year, the student’s guarantee status remains in effect for the remainder of that academic year.

A housed fraternity or sorority that fails to meet any of the preceding commitments is subject to discontinuation, with the residence going into the Draw. The University reserves the right to remove any fraternity or sorority from housing for failure to comply with University policy.

Collective Financial Responsibility

It is the responsibility of the fraternity or sorority to keep its house 100% full or pay rent to the University for any vacancies. Each year by the beginning of Spring Quarter, the University will notify fraternities and sororities in writing of occupancy fees and the payment schedule for the upcoming year. The fee schedule will include amounts owed the University by the fraternity or sorority from previous years, if any exist. The University may charge the fraternity or sorority interest at the prevailing Stanford rate for any amounts not paid when due.

The house staff works closely with the University to set appropriate charges for residents quarterly, to include each resident’s pro rata share of all house financial obligations, fees for services and supplies, damages for lost or destroyed property, and damages resulting from negligence or misconduct of the house or any member, guest, or employee of the house. All house debt must be paid in full by the end of each academic quarter. In the event that the collective financial obligation of the fraternity or sorority is not met, the University reserves the right to bill residents of the fraternity or sorority individually for their pro rata share of the outstanding debt. The house staff, working with University officials, may place a hold on the registration of any member with outstanding debt to the organization.

Occupancy

Approved and rated housing spaces are those spaces in the house that have been approved by the University for students to live in and are included in the house’s total rated occupancy. A housed fraternity or sorority cannot change occupancy of the house without prior written consent of the Senior Associate Director for Undergraduate Housing Operations and the Associate Dean of Residential Education for Undergraduate Independent Living and Fraternity and Sorority Life. If re-rating is deemed safe and equitable, the rent bill of the house will be increased or decreased accordingly. A housed fraternity or sorority cannot provide residency to more students than the rated occupancy of the house and is obligated to pay rent for each rated space in the house.

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