The housing selection season can be a trying time on the Colorado College campus; fear of a bad time slot can be all but consuming. Confusion over deadlines, forms, and information session dates abound. Friendships falter on the edge as the question of who will room with who tears people apart. For seniors living off campus, the struggle of subleasing adds a new layer of complexity to the housing game. Going through the housing process at CC marks a stressful rite of passage. A new application for the housing process this year could make it less draining.
Instead of getting an email from your residential life coordinator when it is time to select housing, students are now directed to their portal on Banner. Under the student tab at the very bottom is a new button: Housing. Once clicked, a smooth webpage opens up, with “Student Housing” on the left and grey on the right. Currently, there are two tabs that lead to nearly identical pages. When filing out your agreement (by March 1), make sure to click the button that says “on-campus housing agreement.”
Preferences are easy enough to put in, though stylistically primitive. If you have specific roommates in mind, make sure to have their gold card numbers handy. Using full names is allowed, but you will be asked for CCID again during the time-crunch of room selection. The page recommends that you insert a maximum of two people in the form using CCID numbers.
At the bottom of the page, you can click the agreement box to agree to the preferences sheet, though it can be submitted without any preferences selected.
Once the agreement is filled out, the student needs to pick their housing. The housing website has floor plans of all the buildings, which is useful when comparing rooms in one dorm to another. There are irregularities, especially in the older houses, and floor plans can help, so use these to your advantage.
In addition to unique floor plans, each building has a specific character no matter who is living in them. Most people, particularly first-years, haven’t been in every place on campus. Fortunately, The Catalyst Housing Guide has. The guide is a good place to go to determine where the right fit might be. The 2019 edition will be released online closer to the mid-March deadline, likely in the next two weeks.
Information session dates and times will be sent out over the next few weeks. Questions on housing are best directed to housing authorities, but don’t let that stop you from loking at The Catalyst Housing Guide.