Housing for Returning Students

Information for Returning Students

This page provides returning students the information they need to navigate the housing application, move-in, and move out processes.

Housing Selection

Application

The 2025-2026 housing application will open on January 15, 2025.  All students will access the housing application in the Res Life Portal.

Our application allows for matching of roommates based on the answers to the questions in the housing application.  Please answer each question honestly.

To get started, please complete the following in the Res Life Portal:

1.  Complete the 'Returning & Transfer Student Application - Fall 2025'

2.  Complete the information requested in 'My Info'.

3.  Find and match yourself with your roommates.  Only students who have completed a housing application will be able to search/be found in the roommate matching process. Each student in your group will need to match themselves with all the others in your group.

4.  Select a 'Dining Plan'.

Priority Numbers

For returning students, priority numbers will be used to determine when you will select your housing.  The highest priority numbers will be given to those students with the highest number of earned credit.  Credits in progress will not be considered when determining priority numbers.  The highest priority is '1'.

When choosing a roommate group, keep in mind that the priority numbers of all roommates will be averaged to determine when you will select your housing.  

Roommate Matching

Roommate matching can occur in one of three ways:

1.  You can search for and select specific people you know and would like to live with during the application process.  All roommates will need to add each other as roommates in the roommate finder, which is part of the housing portal.

2.  You can use the search function in the roommate finder in the housing portal to find students who answered application questions similarly to you.  You have full control to focus your search on specific questions or all questions.

3.  You can let us use the new roommate matching software to find you the best match based on your application questions.  For returning students, this process will occur after the housing selection nights.   

Help Guide for Selecting a Roommate

Housing Selection Details

When you go through the housing selection process on your selection night, students must fill a complete room.  Stuyvesant Hall will allow for students to sign up for one half of a suite (2 students), and Hayes and Welch require students to fill an entire suite (4 students).  

Groups who do not have a full roommate group capable of filling a suite (group of 2 in Stuy, group of 4 in Hayes and Welch) will not be able to select housing on their housing selection night.  Students in this situation will be assigned a room on April 10, and any vacant spots within a roommate group will be filled with another student using the Roommate Finder system.

Returning Student Housing Timeline

Bradford Milligan Hall

Bradford Milligan Hall is for seniors only (see below for details). To find out more about the building, including apartment layouts and room information, click here.

Eligibility

Bradford Milligan Hall is for seniors only.  For fall semesters, we define 'senior' as a student who has earned 23 or more credits by the end of the preceding spring term.  That earned credit total will include spring credits in progress (for apartment selection only) and transfer credits.  If you will have fewer than 23 credits by the end of the spring term, you will not be eligible to participate in housing selection for Bradford Milligan Hall.  Residential Life will notify everyone who is eligible to participate in housing selection for Bradford Milligan Hall. 

Priority Order

The order in which students will select housing during their designated housing selection night is determined by credit hours.  The order in which you completed the housing application has no bearing on your priority number.  Students with the most credit hours, as detailed above, will have the highest priority number and select housing first.  Matched roommates will have their priority numbers averaged, and the group's new (averaged) priority number will determine when they select housing.  

Filling Apartments

In order to select to live in a 4- or 6-person apartment, students must fill the apartment with a set of matched roommates (you must match with all other roommates in the Res Life Portal).  Please see the 'Roommate Matching' section offered near the top of this webpage for information about how to match with roommates in the Res Life Portal.  For example, a group of 3 people will not be able to select a 4-person apartment because they did not fill the apartment.

We also have 8-person apartments.  Each 8-person apartment has 6 single rooms and 1 two-person room.  Each single room can be selected by a single person during housing selection, and the two-person rooms can be selected by two people who have matched as roommates.  You do not have to fill an entire 8-person apartment to be able to select a room within it. 

Apartments are not single gender spaces, so your roommate group can include all genders.

Interest in the apartments is high, and we encourage you to have a contingency plan in the event your first choice option is not available when it is your turn to select housing.  For instance, if you had planned to select a 4-person apartment but none are available when it is your turn, you could then perhaps select 4 individual rooms in an 8-person apartment.       

Vacancies and Waitlist

If there are vacancies in Bradford Milligan Hall at the end of the apartment housing selection process, junior-status students may be offered those spaces.  The students with the highest amount of earned credit will be offered those spaces first.

As vacancies arise in Bradford Milligan Hall, we will fill them from the 'Apartments' waitlist, which will be available via the Res Life Portal after housing selection is complete.  Students on the waitlist with the highest earned credits will be offered a space in the apartments before students with lower earned credits.  This is different than our other waitlists, in which order is determined by the order you add yourself to the waitlist.  

Early Housing Placement Process

The following houses and circumstances will go through the early housing placement process, which takes place before other returning students go through the housing selection process.  Early placement applications will be available January 15, 2025 and are due on February 10, 2025.  Full timeline details is available under the "Returning Student Housing Selection Timeline" below.  Students not selected for an early housing placement will be asked to complete a Returning or Transfer Student Housing Application.

Small Living Unit Application & Renewal

The application for new and renewing Small Living Units (SLU) will be available on November 15, 2024.  Please review the information below for a full timeline and overview of the application and renewal process.  If you have questions, please direct them to reslife@owu.edu.

New & Renewing SLU Application

The new & renewing SLU application will be available on November 15, 2024 and sent to campus via email and the OWU Daily.

2025-2026 SLU SElection Important Dates

Fraternities Housing selection important Dates

Move In

Move-in information for August 2025 will be posted here when available.  Please visit our list of Important Dates to understand move-in timelines.

Move Out

Move out information for May 2025 will be posted here when available.  Please visit our list of Important Dates to understand move out timelines.