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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

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. 

We encourage you to bring pictures, posters, etc., that will make your room comfortable and an expression of who you are. We will release a comprehensive packing list this summer. In the meantime, please see our list of prohibited items.

Move-in for Fall 2025 is Saturday, August 23rd, for First-Year students

First-year students may not bring a car to campus and will not be able to purchase a parking pass.

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 students will be required to have a meal plan.