Glossary of Terms

All eligible students will be assigned a timeslot and be able to select a room for themselves and/or their group during this phase. Each bedspace in a unit must be filled in order for the housing system to process the selection. The number of students in the group must equal the number of vacancies in the unit. This phase will appear during both the Return to House and Move to Any House processes.

All eligible students will be assigned a timeslot and be able to select a room for themselves and/or their group. They can select a bed for themselves and/or have the option of assigning a bed for anyone else in their roommate group within the same unit. In this phase, apartments/suites may be filled partially by the selecting group. This phase will appear during both the Return to House and Move to Any House processes.

Every roommate group requires a captain. The captain will create the roommate group and provide the name and password to other members so they may join the group.

If you are not the group captain you must join a group if you are applying to live with roommates. You should request the name and password from your group captain.

All rising second-year, transfer, and rising third- and fourth-year students with completed applications who are not on the Room Selection Waitlist will be eligible for this process.  For this process, students will receive timeslots to select from available units in Du Bois, Gregory, Harnwell, Harrison, Gutmann, Radian, Rodin, or Stouffer-Mayer.   

Program Communities are living-learning environments that provide an opportunity to live with students and faculty who share a passion for a particular subject. Membership in a PC is completely voluntary and requires a special application process — most often an essay and perhaps House-specific requirements. Anyone applying to a Program Community as a group will need to select the same program choice. The group will either be accepted or not accepted as a group.

Students eligible to participate in Room Selection and currently living in Du Bois, Gregory, Harnwell, Harrison, Gutmann, Radian, Rodin, or Stouffer-Mayer will be assigned a timeslot to return to their current College House. They, or another member of their roommate group that has a timeslot, can select spaces in their current House.

All students on the waitlist must complete their Room Selection application and submit it prior to the closing of the application at 5 pm on February 7 to be considered for on-campus housing.  Students will be removed from the waitlist based on availability. If and when a student who is not on the waitlist with an active application chooses to cancel their Rising Third & Fourth-Year Room Selection application, we can activate another student from the waitlist. 

If you are still on the waitlist once Room Selection concludes, you will receive an email from the Housing Occupancy Team asking how you would like to proceed. At that time, you will be able to keep your application active or you may cancel without penalty.  These students with active applications will be eligible for spaces as they become available throughout the end of the spring semester and into the summer.

Anyone that wants to live in the same unit will need to be in a roommate group. Single applicants are NOT required to be in a roommate group. A group can have up to six members. All group members must have the same sex assigned at birth or be participating in Gender Inclusive Housing.

Third- and fourth-year students residing in eligible spaces with completed applications will have the option to stay in their current room for the coming academic year. Single units and units that conflict with Program Community placement will not be retainable.  Students currently living in retainable rooms will see specific directions in their Room Selection Application that they must follow should they want to return to the same room next year. 

Lauder and Gregory-Van Pelt residents will not have the ability to participate in Room Retention.

Timeslots are what determines when you can log into MyHomeAtPenn during the Return to House and Move to Any House processes.  Students will get a timeslot for Fill a Unit and Fill a Bed phases of the selection processes.  Rising fourth-year students will get earlier timeslots than rising third-year students, who will get earlier timeslots than rising second-year students.