
Housing Application and Assignment Process
The housing application opens each year for incoming First-Year students in early April. For the 2025-2026 academic year, the Housing application will open to the Class of 2029 on April 7, 2025.
For the 2025-2026 academic year, the Housing Application will close for incoming First-Year students on May 30, 2025. Please complete your application by this date to ensure the best chance to be assigned your preferred housing. Students who do not complete the application by this date will still receive a housing assignment, but they may miss the opportunity to be placed with preferred roommates/suitemates or in a preferred residence hall.
Students are able to request a roommate when completing their housing application. During the housing application process, students are able to select a preferred roommate/suitemate group through a roommate preference function. There are two important things to note with roommate requests:
- There is a deadline for submission of roommate requests. Annually the deadline for submission falls around late May, typically the last Friday of the month. For 2025-2026, the deadline for roommate request submission was Friday, May 30, 2025.
- Know that placement with preferred roommate/suitemate groups is not guaranteed; however, the staff in the Student Living and Learning Office will do their very best to match preferred roommates/suitemates.
Within the Housing Application, you will be asked to fill out a roommate matching survey. This survey will ask you a number of questions regarding your lifestyle preferences. Using these responses, you will be able to search for roommates based on the answers they provided to their questions. If you are unable to find a roommate yourself using these responses, you will be assigned a roommate based on your answers to the survey.
Students will be notified in late June/early July via their RPI email of their building, room, and roommate/suitemate assignment.
Please submit a housing accommodation form as soon as possible. You can find more information about the housing accommodation and waiver process here.
Arriving to Campus
Move-in for Fall 2026 will be announced in the coming weeks. Details on move-in can be found here.
Sophomore move-in and upperclass move-in dates will be announced in the next few weeks. Details on move-in can be found here.
First-year students may not bring a car to campus and will not be able to purchase a parking pass. Upperclassmen may bring cars upon purchase of a parking permit here. Please direct all permit and vehicle requirement questions to parking@rpi.edu.
Yes! You may order through our preferred vendor starting now! Place your order as soon as possible to guarantee the fridge will be in your room on move-in day. Please order here.
All first-year and second-year students will be required to have a meal plan. Please direct all meal plan questions to auxiliaryservices@rpi.edu.
Lofting and bunking of beds is prohibited in the residence halls.
Students can begin to ship their items to campus for the school year on August 1, 2026.
Packages and mail should be addressed as following:
"Your Name"
RPI
Your Residence Hall & Room Number
1999 Burdett Ave.
Troy, NY 12180
The mail room will be open for you to collect your items on move-in day.
We encourage you to bring pictures, posters, etc., that will make your room comfortable and an expression of who you are. For a comprehensive list, take a look at our what to bring list. Also, please see our list of prohibited items.
If you are a first-year student, you do require a timeslot. When it is time to sign-up, you will be notified and will be able to choose your timeslot by logging in here and clicking the link at the top of the page "Housing and Dining Forms." You will then be directed to a page with several links. You are looking for the very first one that says "Book Move-In Appointment."
If you are an upperclass student, you do not require a timeslot.
Residence Hall Information and Options
Students live with others from their cohort to enhance your Rensselaer experience through living with those experiencing a similar adjustment. This optimizes your transition by maximizing social opportunities via the living and learning experience. A list of first-year residence halls can be found here.
The Student Living and Learning website provides amenity information about each of our halls, including furniture (and dimensions), air conditioning (if available), hall carpeting, elevators, laundry, in-suite kitchens (for apartments), and the nearest dining hall.
If you are in need of housing accommodations, please complete the Housing Accommodation Form. Please note that you will be asked to provide medical documentation for cases of medical conditions.
We recognize that single-gender housing may not be appropriate or comfortable for all students. To accommodate for this, a limited number of rooms are made available as gender-inclusive housing in both the residence halls and apartments. Gender Inclusive Housing areas will allow students to have roommates and suitemates that identify across the gender spectrum without consideration of legal sex. You may choose this option in the housing application.
Note that Gender Inclusive Housing is only open to students who indicate interest in it and provide responses to all related questions on their housing application. If you are interested in gender-inclusive housing and have a preferred roommate, make sure that they are open to gender-inclusive housing and indicate so on their housing application.
Special Interest Housing communities offer the opportunity to extend the classroom learning experience to a living environment shared with other students with similar interests and passions. For more information, visit the Student Living and Learning website.