Housing Lottery FAQ

Washington and Lee University requires three years of on-campus residency. Returning students select their room and roommate(s) in the spring term for the following academic year through the housing lottery & selection process. Prior to the housing lottery, each student must apply for housing online in eRezLife by completing the appropriate application for the upcoming fall term. The procedural fairness of the lottery is ensured through a random selection process in which students receive computer-generated timeslots based on priority. Priority is determined by each student’s class year as follows:

1. Rising Juniors (first priority)
2. Rising Sophomores (second priority)
3. Rising Seniors (third priority)

*Note: Students should check the web directory to confirm their class year is consistent with university designation, as this will impact when you will be able to select housing.

View room selection dates and times chart

Time slots are randomly assigned by eRezLife via lottery based solely on your class year. The size or composition of your roommate group, or lack of a roommate group, does not impact the time slot you are assigned through the lottery, nor does changing roommate groups impact your time slot. (For example, having a six-person roommate group does not mean you will be assigned a townhouse time slot.) You cannot switch time slots, but you can switch roommate groups at any time.

No. Students assigned to fraternity/sorority housing for the upcoming year are not eligible to participate in the upper-division housing lottery and selection. A separate room assignment process is conducted by each chapter prior to housing lottery and selection.

No. Students assigned to Theme Houses for the upcoming year are not eligible to participate in the upper-division housing lottery and selection.

Tuition information for W&L can be found on the Business Office Webpage, as well as in the housing agreement for the upcoming Fall Term. If the rate is listed at TBD it means that this information will be communicated at a later time. The annual room rate is payable in two equal installments, as billed in advance by the University. If you have questions regarding payment and billing, please contact the Business Office directly.

Yes. Like all students participating in the housing lottery, rising seniors wanting to live on campus must register by the posted deadlinein order to be eligible to participate. Because of the three-year residency requirement, rising seniors may select housing only after rising sophomores and juniors are placed. If more rising seniors are registered for the housing lottery than space permits, the Office of Housing & Residence Life will use registration times to determine eligibility (first come, first served). Rising seniors will enter room selection on the evening of Day 4. Rising juniors or rising sophomores will be able to select rising seniors to live with their group at noon on Day 4.

No. Once your room reservation has been confirmed, no changes are possible through eRezLife. Room change requests may be submitted to the Office of Housing & Residence Life only after the last day of the selection process has concluded. Requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Residence Life reserves the right to approve or deny any room change request. However, once the room freeze deadline is in effect, no more room changes will be accepted, and you will be expected to move into the room to which you are assigned. View the Housing Lottery & Selection Timeline for more details. Students who move into an unassigned room will be assessed a $100 fine and referred to student conduct per the Student Handbook.

The earliest selection timeslot among your group will provide you/your group with better odds of securing your preferred apartment/townhouse. Review your timeslots with those you wish to live with, agree on the priorities of where people want to live, and be prepared with alternative choices in the event the place you want to live isn’t available. Only one person in the group will make room selections and send roommate requests for your group. Each person receiving a roommate request must log in within 24 hours of receipt to either accept or deny the roommate request. If all roommate requests are accepted, your group is done, and your room assignment will appear online. For the Village, if someone in the group denies a roommate request, then the entire apartment/townhouse is released back into the pool of available units for others to select, and the group must start over. Remember, room selection times are randomly issued within a class year. If you want to live with a student(s) in a different class year than yourself, please refer to the room selection dates and times webpage.

You will not be able to reserve a unit in the Village (apartment or townhouse) unless ALL bed spaces in the unit are filled. You may reserve some apartments in Woods Creek without filling all of the bed spaces, but we encourage you to have choices to fill all of the beds, otherwise students participating as “singles” will have the right to select any vacant spaces and/or the Office of Housing & Residence Life will assign a student to the room.

You will need to ensure the number of people in your group match the number of beds in an apartment or townhouse. If a roommate request is denied for the Village, your group will lose the reservation for the townhouse/apartment and your entire group must begin the selection process over. For Woods Creek, the declined bed space will be released back into the system for other students to select.

Please try the following solutions:

• Ensure you are only logged into eRezLife on one device.
• Try an incognito or private browser.
• Ensure your browser is up to date.
• Try using Google Chrome or Firefox, eRezLife works best with those browsers.
• Make sure that your cookies/cache have been cleared.

Once you have tried all of the above steps, if you are still getting the FORBIDDEN (403) error, please reach out to Residence Life. 

No. Once a pending roommate request is made, the student name is no longer available for selection unless the roommate request is denied by the student being requested. Make your roommate selections carefully and make sure your preferred roommates login to eRezLife to respond to the roommate request. If they decline your request, others may request them. If they are pending OR accept your request, they cannot be searched by other roommate groups.

In the event that you have not created your roommate group before your time slot opens, the person in your group making room selections (typically the person with the earliest selection time) will have 5 minutes to make all roommate requests once a unit has been selected. It is essential for your group to be well prepared in advance. Reviewing floorplans and communicating preferences with each other. Since the Village requires every room to be filled at the time of room selection, if all roommate requests are not made and accepted within the 5-minute allotment, the entire townhouse/apartment will become available for others to select and your group must begin the room selection process over.

Be sure you are typing in the name correctly – using full legal names and not nicknames. If the student did not register for the lottery in advance as required, or will be abroad fall term, or if they have received a theme or fraternity/sorority housing assignment, they are not eligible to participate in the lottery, therefore their name is not included in the process.

If a student has a pending roommate request or has already accepted a roommate request, their name will be visible on the dropdown menu, but you will not be able to select them. The person you are requesting will either need to accept or decline any pending roommate requests.

Just like class registration, it’s important to plan ahead and have multiple contingency plans if your first choices are not available. For instance, if no townhouses are available for your group of 6, you will need to make adjustments to your group size (decrease to 4) and consider apartments. Your group will need to discuss who will be removed from the group in this scenario.

Yes, our apartments and townhouses are not gendered by unit. In Woods Creek apartments that have double rooms, those double rooms do not have a gender specified for the room, it is important you arrange your roommates to occupy the apartment beds in the correct rooms for who you want to live with in each room. Otherwise, those units all have a shared private bathroom with single rooms.

As a note, some theme houses have rooms with a designated sex based off the bathroom designation for that floor if a floor only has one bathroom that is not gender-neutral.

Please refer to the Student Handbook and your housing agreement for a complete list of campus policies.

Check out our Upper-Division Housing page to learn more about specific housing locations on campus. You can learn how many residents can live in a room, townhouse, or apartment, amenities, and more! Still can’t find what you are looking for? Check out the Upper-Division Housing FAQ.

The composition of your roommate group dictates which units are available to you when browsing and selecting rooms. This includes the number of people in your group, their gender (in some theme housing locations), and their class year. You must have a six person roommate groups to view/select a townhouse and a four-person group for Village apartments. For example, if you have a group of 5, you will not be able to select a 6-person townhouse or if a theme house has a floor designated all-female and someone in the group is male, they cannot be assigned the room. Make sure you review the chart for selection based on class-year.

Remember, if it appears there are not any available units with your group configuration, you may alter your group during selection.
 

There are not enough units in the Village to house all rising juniors, so this will happen at a certain point during selection. If all of the Village units are filled by the time your group can select housing, you and your group can select a Woods Creek apartment or work with the Office of Residence Life after selection to find housing, likely in a theme house.

Possibly. If there are remaining units in the Village during sophomore selection times, sophomores may select to live in these units.

Yes. Community Assistants will live in theme houses, Woods Creek, and the Village and will assist students with check-in, check-out, maintenance issues, health and safety inspections, as well as coordinating programs, activities, and other community events.

No. All spaces within a Village townhouse/apartment must be reserved in order to secure the unit. Village units are 4-person apartments and 6-person townhouses (exception of one available 7-person townhouse, O3). Communicate in advance with your peers so that you have a group size sufficient to fill a unit. If you are unable to fill a unit in the Village, you will be required to select a Woods Creek apartment which offers 3, 4, and 5 person apartments. Unlike Village units, Woods Creek apartments are not required to be completely filled at the time of room selection. Note: Other students will be able to select the open spaces in Woods Creek during the remainder of the lottery. In the event Woods Creek apartments are not completely filled during the lottery, the Office of Residence Life may at any point randomly assign the open spaces to random students with little notice to current apartment residents.

If you are looking for a roommate to fill your roommate group, we suggest attending a “Roommate Mixer” and/or filling out the “Roommate Matching” form.

Yes, but this is not recommended because you may be randomly assigned a roommate. If you are looking for a roommate, we suggest attending a “Roommate Mixer” and/or filling out the “Roommate Matching” form.

Note: Other students will be able to select the open spaces in Woods Creek during the remainder of room selection. In the event Woods Creek apartments are not completely filled during the lottery, the Office of Housing & Residence Life may at any point randomly assign the open spaces to students in need of housing with little notice to current apartment residents.

Yes. You will be required to provide rank order to indicate your theme house preferences. For any theme house you list on your application you will need to complete the corresponding questionnaires.

Visit the Housing FAQ for Students Participating in Study Abroad Programs for more information.