Housing for Returning Students - 2025-2026 Housing Selection Process

Returning students should follow the timeline and step-by-step instructions below to arrange their on-campus housing. SUNY Geneseo has a two-year residency requirement. All students must live on campus in College housing for four semesters if they entered as a Freshman or a Transfer with less than 30 college earned credits.

Note that SUNY Geneseo guarantees housing for undergraduate students even for late applications - do not sign a housing contract as a backup plan for off campus housing as that will not be a valid reason for release.  

This information is for returning students only. New students please see the New Student Housing page. Summer housing information can be found on the Summer Session Housing page later in the Spring semester.

Room Types

Approximately 80% of our on-campus students live in double rooms in corridor and suite buildings however we do have single spaces available at an advanced rate. Townhouse and Deluxe Single selection occurred this past November for rising Juniors and Seniors, however the spaces (if any) that remain will be available in this selection process. Note different housing options will have different rates*.  Shared bathrooms in suites are not cleaned by custodial staff however toilet paper, shower curtains, and some cleaning products are provided in all suite units except Saratoga.

*There is typically a 3% increase to room rates between years. While our official rates are typically released in the summer for the following academic year, adding 3% to current room rates is a good guide for planning purposes. There is a cost difference between suite doubles and corridor doubles. 

EMS helpers at move-in day

 

Housing Locations Available for Upper Level

Housing Option Area
Suites - 6 and 8 person Allegany, Erie, Genesee
Corridor - Doubles Monroe, Steuben
Lavender LLC - combined upper level and first year Seneca Fourth Floor (4 person suites)
Multicultural House (formerly Umoja/Kuumba)- combined upper level and first year Monroe Second Floor (partial)
Eco House - combined upper level and first year Suffolk Third Floor (partial)
Digital Arts & Gaming - combined upper level and first year Onondaga South Second Floor (partial)
Arts & Wellness - combined upper level and first year Onondaga South Fourth Floor (partial)
STEM - combined upper level and first year Onondaga North Fourth Floor (partial)
Sensory Retreat - combined upper level and first year Putnam Hall
Substance-Free - combined upper level and first year Steuben Fourth Floor (partial)
Writers House - combined upper level and first year Seneca First, Second, Third Floor
Business & Society - combined upper level and first year Suffolk Second Floor
International Student Housing (open to all international students) Steuben Second Floor (partial)
Transfer Student Community (open to past transfers) Erie, First Floor
Global Experience (former Food Culture and Global House) Wyoming First Floor (partial)
Singles Ontario, Saratoga

*Note these locations are subject to change based on need, availability, and space on campus.

Discussion of Singles

SUNY Geneseo offers singles for returning students in Saratoga Townhouses and Ontario Deluxe Singles. These are designed independent living communities that have reduced staffing and will not close for academic year breaks.  This makes it a great option for students who want more independence and flexibility for those who want to stay for the duration of Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring breaks.

 

If those rooms are filled by your selection time, there will be a waiting list for that area as well.  In the meantime, you should select another room. 

Timeline

  • February 1: Housing Applications available
  • April 1: Housing Applications due
  • April 9: Housing selection times released
  • April 15: LLC Selection
  • April 17: Full Group Suite Selection
  • April 22 - April 24 (anticipated): General Housing Selection

Tips and Resources

If you are looking for a roommate or suitemate, Residence Life has created a new resource this year called the Roommate/Suitemate Classifieds. This is a form that you fill out that gives you access to the responses of other students who have filled out the same form. You can then connect and see if this may be someone you want to live with. Once your search is complete, there is another form you can fill out to remove your information from this forum. While a new offering, we hope this will assist you in meeting and discovering other students you may want to live with.

 

We ALWAYS recommend having backup plans and multiple options for housing in case what you are hoping for is full by your selection time.

 

Students interested in suites are suggested to form a roommate group the size of the suite they would like to be in (for example a roommate group of 8 for an 8 person suite). We will have full group selection prior to general selection so this is your best chance of getting into a suite. If any suite spaces are remaining after full group suite selection, they will be available in general selection for partial groups or individuals. We expect most suites to fill early in the process so if a suite is your first choice, make a backup plan.

1. Complete your application

On February 1, the Returning Student Housing Application and Returning Student Living Learning Community Application will be available to you through the Symplicity Residence software. Log in to Symplicity and on your Symplicity Residence home screen, you will notice under applications they will appear. Note that you can only submit one application so please explore your options with LLC and non-LLCs prior to final submission of an application.

Application Sections

Personal Information

You should not need to provide much information in this section, as much of it is automatically generated from the College's data. 

Who are you hoping to live with?

This is a roommate matching questionnaire. You must complete this matching profile, even if you already know who you plan to live with. Sometimes, students leave residence halls during the school year, whether to study abroad, to graduate early, or for other reasons. These completed profiles will allow us to match you with a compatible roommate, should your original roommate leave.

Where are you hoping to live?

Depending on which application you are completing, you may simply be selecting the style of housing you will be looking for as your primary preference, or applying for which of the LLCs you think you would like to be in.

Consenting to Residential License

Before submitting your Application, you should review the SUNY Geneseo Residential License. The Residential License describes important policies and conditions for living in our residence halls. It also specifies that, by consenting to its terms, you agree to live in the residence halls for the entire 2025 - 2026 school year. This means that you will not simply be allowed to choose to live off-campus during the Spring 2026 semester or at any point during the year. This is a license agreement, just like if you were signing an off-campus apartment lease.

Submitting Your Application vs. Saving Application as Draft: The Symplicity Residence software allows you to save your application as a draft, which is convenient. But applications which are saved as drafts are not officially submitted. Therefore, you must remember to submit your application officially by the deadline. (Click the "Submit Application" button.) Otherwise, you and your roommate and/or suitemates will not be able to choose your living space during the Housing Selection process.

2. Form your roommate group (optional)

If you want to live with a friend in a corridor-style room, or with multiple friends in a suite, you will need to form a roommate group in the Symplicity Residence software. Note that only students who have completed the application will show up for you in the Roommate tab.

Reminder: If you are applying to live in an LLC, all members of your roommate group must also apply and be accepted into the same LLC or your group will be automatically disbanded.

  1. After you access your Symplicity Residence account, navigate to the "Roommate" tab on the top menu.
  2. You will then be asked to "Choose a Term". Select the term for which you are selecting your housing (i.e. Fall 2021).
  3. Click on the "Find Someone You Know" tab.
  4. You will see a box labeled "Enter a Roommate Code". In the event that you are forming your roommate group on behalf of your friends, you will need to ask each of your friends for their passcodes. All students can find their passcodes in the upper-right corner of the Symplicity Residence home screen. As long as you type your friend's passcode in the "Roommates:" field correctly, their name should appear in the larger text box below the magnifying glass. By clicking on the highlighted name, you can add your friend to the group. If you plan to live in a suite or townhouse with multiple friends, you can just repeat the process of typing passcodes in the "Roommates:" field until all of your friends are included in the group.
  5. When you finish, click the "Save" button. (Note: It is not necessary to type your own passcode in the "Roommates:" field -- you will be added to the group automatically.)
  6. If you can view all of your friends' names in the text box below the magnifying glass, your group was created successfully.

Things to Note About Groups

  • If you type a passcode incorrectly, or if you try to type a name in the "roommates" field instead, a small triangle with an exclamation point will appear, and nothing will happen.
  • You need to identify a group leader that will spearhead the roommate request - forming a group will not work if more than one person has tried to make the group.
  • The roommate request are only active for 24 hours. If you wait longer than 24 hours, you'll need to start the process again
  • All members of a roommate group must have completed their the same application as you or you will not be able to find them.
  • You cannot be in a roommate group with an incoming student (freshman or transfer) and they are not eligible to participate in selection.
  • The Symplicity Residence software will allow the formation of mixed-gender groups.

Suite Selection

Students interested in suites are suggested to form a roommate group the size of the suite they would like to be in (for example a roommate group of 8 for an 8 person suite). We will have full group selection prior to general selection so this is your best chance of getting into a suite. 

If any suite spaces are remaining after full group suite selection, they will be available in general selection for partial groups or individuals. We expect most suites to fill early in the process so if a suite is your first choice, make a backup plan.

 

3. Select your housing at your assigned time

After you complete your application and form your roommate group, all that is left is to wait! You will be notified about your official Housing Selection date and time via email (timeline above). Housing selection is a lottery system.

For LLC Selection, times are based on terms living on campus (and randomized within same amount of terms).

For Full Group and General Housing Selection, times are based on class year (based on admit term (so if you entered Geneseo this past fall you are considered a freshman), and randomized within same class year).

Each student will be assigned a time however we recommend you select your group leader to be the person with the earliest time as only your group leader can select for your group. Roommate matching will remain open so if the space you are looking for is no longer available by your selection time, the group has the opportunity to change their group, break up into different groups, or make modifications to assist in selecting with a backup plan.

Starting the Selection Process

At your or if in a group, your group leader's, designated Housing Selection time (again we recommend your group leader be the person with the earliest time), you should notice a Room Selection section on the left side of your Symplicity Residence home page. To begin the process of choosing your living space, click on the blue "Open" button next to the name of your Housing Selection process.

**Even if you miss your selection time, your group leader can always go in and select a room any time that week.  All processes stay open until the last day of selection. The only thing that will happen is more people may have selected but other spaces will be available. 

**If you do not select a room during selection but completed an application, an assignment will be made for you as you committed to living on campus by completing the application.

To see this process here is a video (only viewable if logged in from a Geneseo account)

Choose Your Desired Residence Hall, Floor, and Suite/Room

You should now be able to view to your Room Selection screen. You can also navigate to your Room Selection screen by using the top menu on your Symplicity home page. On this screen, you can choose your preferred residence hall, floor, and suite/room from the living spaces that are still available.

  • Only the suites and rooms which are not yet selected will show in the drop-down menus. You will not be able to select into spaces that are reserved for groups of a certain size if your roommate group is not that size. This means that, for instance, 6-person groups will not be able to see 8-person suites that are reserved. Upper-Level Communities are those for partial groups.
  • After you choose your preferred residence hall, you will be prompted to choose a floor, then an "apartment" (means suite) or corridor-style room. (Note: In Symplicity, suites are called "apartments".)

Specify Assignments/Roommates Within Suite

If you and your friends are choosing a suite, you will also need to specify where each group member will be living within the suite. This is achieved through the use of drop-down boxes. Make sure you have your roommates correct! Residence Life does hundreds of suite room changes over the summer and during opening, this is a lot of manual work for our team and can impact your billing and check in process so we highly encourage students to have a plan of who will be living with who in what room prior to selecting. 

Finalize Your Housing Selection

After you click the "Finalize Selection" button, a screen notifying you that you selection has been finalized should appear. This signifies that your suite or room has been reserved, which means that no other roommate group will be able to choose your living space. You will be able to see your selecting until the housing process ends on your homepage in Symplicity.

Potential Challenges in Choosing Your Housing

  1. Housing Selection times are staggered by intervals of 1-2 minutes. This means new students and roommate groups enter the process every 1-2 minutes, in addition to all of the groups already in the system who have not yet selected. In the event that you wait too long to finalize your selection, the next group could choose the same room or suite which you are in the process of choosing. If you miss your time, you could also miss the suite you may wish to fill.
  2. Only the leader of your roommate group will be able to choose your living space if you are in a group. If the leader of your group is unavailable to choose your room or suite at your designated Housing Selection time, he/she can transfer the group leader designation to another group member by clicking the green arrow next to his/her name in the "Roommate Management" tab.
  3. Roommate groups will be able to be modified at any time during the general selection process (they are locked for LLC and Full suite selection). This means if the suite you want is unavailable and your backup plan is a corridor, you can disband and reform your roommate group as needed to be able to select into your backup plan location.
  4. Make sure you look at the gender restriction of the room or suite you are looking at. Some are listed as "Same Gender" and some are listed as "Mixed Gender". You should choose which you prefer even if you have a full group. If you prefer same gender and select into a mixed gender suite, someone who identifies as a different gender than yours may select into that space or if you lose a suitemate later could be assigned there as the system sees that suite as a mixed gender suite.
  5. As a reminder, students who are not bound by the residency requirement can revoke their application/contract by April 1st. For residency required students or non-residency required students after April 1st, you must submit a request to be released from your housing contract for a qualifying reason to be reviewed and decided on by the Housing Release Committee. Releases are rare. All students submitting an application/contract should ensure they understand the terms of this binding financial contract prior to submitting.

Housing Brigade - we're ready to help during Selection!

  • A group of Residence Life staff will be available in the College Union 319 and via email (reslife@geneseo.edu) and phone (585-245-5726) during the week of housing selection (10am-3pm).
  • You can come ahead of your selection time and we'll help you through the process or you can call/email/visit during or after your selection time to troubleshoot any issues.