Room Retention and Selection take place each February and are when students currently living in the residence halls secure their housing for the next academic year. Below are some tips and information to help you in the process.
Same Room Retention
During this process, eligible students can retain their current rooms to live in again next year. The opportunity to select your same room ends February 5 at 11:59pm. You will NOT be able to select your room after this date and time. When you select your same room, please make sure to complete ALL ITEMS.
Room Selection
Room Selection is when students who are not retaining their same room select their room for the next academic year. During this process you will self-select your building, room, and bed space.
There are TWO STEPS to the room retention/selection process. Please make sure that you complete BOTH STEPS.
- Fill out your housing agreement (you will put building preferences on this page, but it is NOT selecting your room).
- Select your building and room or retain same room.
Get a head start on the process if you are not retaining your same room.
The housing agreement opens at 9am on February 7th. If you fill out your housing agreement in advance of your selection date and time, you will be able to move directly to the self-assignment portion of the process when your selection time begins.
Roommate Preferences
If you have a roommate preference make sure you follow the steps below.
- Create a roommate group as you complete your housing agreement. You are allowed to preference one roommate. To do this, you will need to know the student ID number of the person you want to live with.
- Both students will need to complete their housing agreements and deposits.
- Your selected roommate will then need to ACCEPT the request before you move to the room selection process.
- In order to pull in a roommate for the Honors House, both you and your roommate must be the the Honor’s College.
- During your room selection time, one person will select housing for you and your roommate. You will also select meal plans during this time. If you are selecting a space with a roommate, you will need to know what meal plan they want.
- When selecting a space in Commons, you will see all available spaces in that suite. To ensure that you and your roommate are in the same bedroom- you will want the same LETTER behind the room number. Example: 102A1 and 102A2 are roommates. 102A1 and 102B2 are NOT roommates. You are in the same suite, but not the same bedroom.
Sharing Your Contact Information with Potential Roommates (NEW)
This year students will have the ability to choose whether or not have your MU Email and/or Cell Phone Number available to roommates. If you wish for your roommates to see your MU Email or Cell Phone you will need to select “Show” under the item(s) you wish to share. If “No Preference” or “Don’t Show” is select then that item will not be shared. You can manage this preference any time by clicking “Update” besides Personal/Emergency Information.
Building and Room Availability
We know that many students are interested in the buildings in Commons (Haymaker, Gibson, Wellman, and Willis) and in single rooms across campus. Please be aware that these spaces do go fairly quickly. Given this, you will want to have everything ready to select during your assigned date and time.
DO NOT STRESS IF YOU DO NOT GET THE BUILDING OR ROOM TYPE YOU PREFER. We will have cancellations over the summer and spaces will open up in single rooms and in Commons. We are frequently able to get you into the building or room type you prefer over the summer or when school starts in August.
We typically work off of a WAITLIST to get students into these spaces. The waitlist is developed from your first building and room type preference you select when you complete the Housing Agreement. When a space becomes available, we will email you to see if you are still interested in it. If you are, we will move you to that space. If you are not, we will move to the next person on the waitlist.
As a reminder, Marshall University has a residency requirement for all Freshman and Sophomore students. If a student does not participate in the room selection process, a hold will be applied to their student account in March that will prevent registering for fall classes.
If you have any questions about the room selection process, please feel free to email housing@marshall.edu, call 304-696-6766, or stop by our office in Holderby Hall. Our office is open Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm.