Your guide to the 2025-2026 housing lottery

By Audrey Sears

With stress piling up from classes, clubs, sports, and all the components of our busy

college student schedules, don’t let uncertainty about housing add to your distress! Here’s

everything you need to know about the 2025-2026 housing lottery:

1. The Housing Application is due Monday, March 24

If you’re planning on living on campus next year, you must complete a housing application.

You can find it by visiting MyHill and clicking on MyHousing (it’s one of the purple buttons

towards the bottom!)

The application is a super simple questionnaire that confirms your request for housing. It’s

as easy as selecting ‘yes’ and signing your name.

If you don’t complete this step, you won’t be able to select roommates/suitemates and

won’t be guaranteed housing next year.

2. Roommate/Suitemate Matching is due Friday, March 28

As long as you’ve completed the Housing Application, you should be able to match with

roommates and/or suitemates. The match won’t be confirmed until all or both parties have

selected one another in MyHousing.

The matching process is as simple as requesting your roommates and accepting them. If

you match with suitemates or multiple roommates, you’ll have to select multiple students

in the section of the questionnaire. If you’re looking to live in a double with only one other

roommate, you’ll only have to select one student.

As for accepting the selection, you’ll have to accept the request from every person who you

want to live with- that is, the entire suite. These requests must be mutual, meaning

everyone who you request to live with must also request and accept you as a roommate

selection.

So to recap, you must request AND accept requests from everyone in the housing party for

the selection to be validated by Residence Life.

3. If you don’t match with anyone in the roommate/suitemate selection, you will

be placed with a random roommate

Sometimes situations happen where students don’t have a plan to live with anyone

specific, and that’s okay! Residence Life has you covered and will automatically match you

with someone else who needs a roommate. The process of matching depends on the number of students and the different residence areas on campus. If you’re worried about getting along with a random roommate, be sure to fill out your roommate profile, which can also be found on MyHousing on the About Me page.

The form allows you to fill out a short biography and publicize your profile for others looking

for a roommate to see.

4. Suites are available in groups of four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, and

fifteen. But these numbers and the ability to block vary depending on location!

Students lucky enough to have a big friend group have the choice of living in suites together

all over campus. Suite-style living is offered in Bogan (New Hall), the Courts, Pilgrim

Heights, O’Hara Village, and the Heights Village (Trailers), and in Notre Dame du Lac.

However, only New Hall, the Courts, and the Villages offer blocking or reservation of entire

suites. In the other locations, only specific rooms may be reserved in a suite, and it is not

guaranteed that the rest of your suite will house the rest of your friends.

Here’s the breakdown of the suite sizes in each building:

Bogan Hall:

• Six, eight, ten-person suites

• Bedrooms are singles or doubles

Courts:

• 12 to 16 people per house (e.g. Alden)/ 20-27 people per building (e.g. Alden-

Bradford)

• Four, six, and eight-person suites (eight upstairs, four or six downstairs)

• Bedrooms are doubles

Pilgrim Heights Suites:

• 8, 10, 12, or 14-person suites (NO BLOCKING)

• Bedrooms are doubles or triples

O’Hara or Pilgrim Heights Village Houses:

• six or eight-person houses (six-person houses also house an RA for a total of seven

residents)

• Bedrooms are doubles

Notre Dame du Lac:

• 15-person suites (NO BLOCKING)

• Bedrooms are doubles or triples

It is also important to note:

Groups must fit perfectly into a house or suite to be able to choose it! An eight-person suite

can only select a suite that houses eight people, not a four or six-person suite.

5. The Housing Lottery: What, When, How, Who, Where?

The housing lottery allows for students in the same priority group to have a randomized and

equal chance to get a good time slot for selection. It begins on Wednesday, April 9 and

continues through April 22, with a schedule that gives upperclassmen precedence to

choose their locations. Here’s a timeline from Residence Life that breaks down the class

years:

Students will be notified via email at exactly 3 p.m. on the day of their lottery when their

selection time will take place. This ranges from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., so drink your coffee and

stay awake!

All students linked as a roommate group receive the same activation time and only one

student in the roommate group should complete the housing selection at the activation

time. Activation times are separated by one to five minutes between groups. When it’s your

turn to choose your housing, visit MyHousing to complete the selection.

An important note for blocking: the person who logs in to complete the selection will assign

roommate pairs to specific rooms.

6. Blocking Parties can include multiple class years

If your friends are in different class years than you, no worries! You’re able to live with them

regardless of class, but there are a few caveats. Blocking groups with mixed-class years will

be entered with a lower priority in the housing lottery. Here is the list of priorities from first to

last:

1. All-Senior Groups

2. Senior Mixed Groups (Group must be composed of 50% or more rising

seniors)

a. Rising seniors trying to pull up rising juniors will go before groups of rising

seniors trying to pull up rising sophomores)

3. All-Junior Groups

4. Junior Mixed Groups (Group must be comprised of 50% or more rising juniors)

a. Rising juniors trying to pull down rising seniors will go before rising juniors

trying to pull up rising sophomores)

5. All Sophomore Groups

a. Rising sophomores are only eligible to block in the Village houses. Rising

sophomores are not eligible to pull down rising juniors or seniors.

7. Special Interest Housing Communities are great options for students

Many locations offer housing communities to students who wish to live in an area that

focuses on a specific attribute. There are three locations and four communities on campus

that are offered to non-Freshmen according to the Residence Life website:

1. Unity Scholars Community (Commonwealth Court: Manchester/Nantucket):

The Unity Scholars Community is an experience designed to increase retention and

graduation rates for students identifying as People of Color. Unity Scholars is open

to any member of the community who has a desire to foster inclusivity and allyship

to the core mission of the special interest community.

2. Quiet Housing (Notre Dame du Lac):

Quiet Living is designed for students who prefer a quieter living community and wish

to live and study in a peaceful and serene environment.

3. Upper-class Honors (Pilgrim Heights):

An active and close-knit community, highly motivated to succeed in matters of both the mind and heart, Moreau Honors students take control over their learning as they uncover new interests and develop new skills.

4. Wellness Housing (Notre Dame du Lac):

Wellness Community provides a unique living opportunity that focuses on holistic

health and wellbeing. Students can expect to participate in bi-weekly discussions

and programs including retreats, field trips, family-style dinners, and service

opportunities. Students will also be expected to volunteer at programs sponsored

by the Health and Wellness Office once per month.

Living in Special Interest Housing can benefit you and allow you to personalize your living

experience at Stonehill.

If you’re planning on participating in special interest housing, a separate special interest

housing application must be filled out that is only made available after you complete the

initial housing application. The form should show up on MyHousing under the same

Application page.

Another note on special interest housing is that the roommate you requested in the housing

community must also be a member of the same special housing.

The number of students accepted into each program varies, so be sure to check the

Residence Life website for more information.

8. You can find out which suites will house RAs in each building so you can plan

accordingly

Whether you want to avoid living with a Resident Assistant or be in close proximity,

Residence Life provides a list of all the locations where RAs will be housed on their website.

9. If you need to know more or have any questions, contact your RA or visit the

Residence Life website.