First Year Housing

On-Campus Dorm (and Off-campus) living and finding a community at the West Lafayette campus

With the Indianapolis campus being a new addition from the 2024-25 academic year, my experience is limited to to the WL campus. What follows is therefore for the WL main campus only.

The housing shortage at Purdue is severe but the University guarantees a dorm space for all new beginners, provided you apply before the deadline. For the year 2024-25, the portal will remain open until June 5th.

You need to keep in mind that your Housing contract runs from around mid Aug to mid May only. You cannot stay in the dorms over the summer. You also need to move your stuff out once exams are over in May. Also, although your stuff can stay inside the dorm, you cannot stay in your room over the winter break. For every extra day, whether you move in early or move out late, you need to pay a fee of $35 per day. A lot of international students and their parents don’t realise this issue.

The on-campus housing contract is available via myPurdue to students who have accepted their offer of admission. Every year Purdue sets a priority application deadline to request rooming with your preferred room-mate(s) and submit housing accommodation requests to the Disability Resource Center, check your emails- for the academic year 2024-25 it is May 20th.

Requests received after this date will be considered based on available space, but there is no guarantee. However, like my kid, most international students will likely not have a specific friend who they want to room with. So you will be allocated room mate(s) by the system based on matching your likes/dislikes. This is a very important survey and you want to answer after careful consideration. Do you like to stay up late or are you an early bird? Are you an introvert or extrovert etc? Do you smoke? A studious person or a party animal? The system will try to match you based on your answers so that for instance an early riser is not roomed with someone who studies till late night. So the system depends on each student to complete the survey truthfully.

There is a short delay of approximately 2 days between the time you accept your offer of admission and when you can access the housing contract in your myPurdue portal. Therefore for the 2024-25 year, accepting your admission offer by May 17th should ensure the contract is available to you by May 20th.

Although the University guarantees a spot to all Freshmen who apply before the deadline, you cannot choose a specific dorm/Hall. Instead, New students will have the opportunity to rank their room type preferences and apply within the housing portal from 1st choice all the way down to the last choice. You can rank them by combination of the number of people in a room (ie single/double/triple, quad etc) and whether you would like it with A/C or without. Once the application closes, a room will be given to based on any medical AC requests, your Learning Community choice, your ranked preference (room type/profile) and any room-mate request you made. Therefore, there is no guarantee that you will be given your 1st choice i.e. you may be allocated something at the bottom of your rankings. You and your proposed room mate must apply, and be accepted, for the same Learning community otherwise you will not be able to share the same room.

I recommend you should apply before the Priority Deadline! Any later and you are risking it..

Applying for a Learning Community and completing a housing contract are TWO SEPARATE PROCESSES. You must fill in a Housing Application while a LC application is optional. When you complete your housing contract with University Residences, you might not know if you have been accepted into a learning community that you may have applied to. That’s okay. Fill out the contract and if you are placed in a learning community you will receive an assignment in the associated residence hall. If you are not placed in a learning community your housing contract preferences will be taken into consideration for your housing assignment.

I would advise against requesting a single room. You’re an international student and you need to meet people! Sure, room-mates can be challenging but they can also be absolutely amazing. Worst case scenario you change room-mates at the semester end. Best case scenario you have that same room-mate for the rest of your time at Purdue and you end up in each others weddings someday (this does actually happen!)

When ranking a room, make sure you have an idea of the housing rates. Depending on the room typology and tier, housing room rates will vary based on location, size and amenities. You want to rank the room types within your budget higher than the ones which look too expensive. Although you have no choice, the ranking does help in indicating to the Housing office what you can afford. I have found that from time to time, and especially between years/semesters, the Housing office takes down the official rates I have linked, while they are in the process of updating the rates. I am therefore uploading a Housing Rate pdf file for you to get an idea of the 2024-2025 rates in those times when the link is down:

Most residences are accessible or partially accessible. All residences are non-smoking. Genders are separated by wing, floor, suite or apartment, depending on the residence. All locations in University Residences are co-ed* with the exception of the following:

All Male: Cary Quadrangle, Tarkington Hall, Wiley Hall and McCutcheon Hall

All Female: Meredith Hall, Meredith South and Windsor Halls

There are generally three “classes” of dorms, based on when they were built:

1. Classic Dorms (no AC)– these are Cary Quad (all male), Meredith Hall (all female), Owen Hall, Tarkington Hall (all male), Wiley Hall (all male). These have all doubles (2 people per room).
2. Semi-Classic Dorms (with AC)– made up of Earhart Hall, Harrison Hall, Hawkins Hall, Hillenbrand Hall, McCutcheon Hall (all male), Shreve Hall, Windsor Hall (all female). These have doubles (sometimes triples) with AC (and sometimes suites with a shared bathroom, depending on the floor plan).
3. Modern-Era Dorms (with AC)– these include First Street Towers, Winifred Parker Hall, Frieda Parker Hall, Honors College, Meredith South Hall (all female). These have a variety of floor layouts, new and modern amenities, and overall offer the best residential experience. Honors College Residence and Winifred Parker Halls are restricted to the Honors College Students only.

Apart from the above, there are also URBA (Boiler Apartments) owned or master leased by Purdue on campus such as Hilltop, Fuse, Aspire etc which offer options for apartment-style living. If you are seeking more independence but also want to stay involved in the many opportunities afforded to you by living on campus with us, consider these. More info here.

Unless you are restricted by your budget, I would recommend the rooms with AC. Having no AC can be a bit iffy as temperatures esp in the first few months of the Fall Semester can be quite high.

Based on students reactions, my impressions of the dorms are as follows:

1. The nicest dorms are:
   • Frieda Parker – top dorm, newly built, restricted to upper-class students so not open to freshmen.
   • Honors- Amongst the best – With 2 towers, North for men and South for women (generally)- the newest dorms on campus. Very centrally located with virtually anywhere on the whole campus a 10 min walk. Restricted to John Martinson Honors College students.
   • Meredith South is all women, and pod style. Very new and really nice.
   • Aspire- Quite expensive- but newly acquired and very nicely built.
   • First Street – All singles, really nice building but you can get isolated if you are not an extrovert- it is quiet there.
2. Views on some of the others are:
   • McCutcheon- Building is overall nice, recently redone bathrooms. Biggest issue is distance from campus
   • Hillenbrand- Suite style, has a dining court on the bottom. They’re really nice, always busy as a lot going on because there is a dining court downstairs as well as learning communities. They’re also quite far from campus.
   • Shreve & Earhart- A lot of learning communities within it. There’s an incredible community within each of those dorms, and it’s always great when you can walk into the lobby and find people struggling over the same homework assignments as you are. They’re also semi-far from main campus, but the walk isn’t bad. Earhart has a dining court on the bottom, Shreve has a giant study lounge.
   • Owen – Right by the stadium and next to Slayter hill so game days it is pretty noisy because you can hear everything from the stadium.

Although you may not be happy with your allocation, I suggest you take your allocated choice in the right spirit.

As far as I see it, there is no point complaining or spending too much time worrying about this. As a parent, you should be instilling a positive attitude in your kid and transmitting the confidence that things will all turn out well, which will ensure your kid starts off with the right spirit at Purdue. The Housing shortage is critical, many senior students don’t get any space in the housing lotteries that are applicable from 2nd year onwards and have to move off-campus, sometimes quite far off due to cost or availability concerns. Just the fact that your kid has an on-campus dorm the first year is reason enough to celebrate, and I am not being sarcastic. Purdue is a wonderful place to study at- dont let small issues make you lose focus from the bigger picture!

The Housing Office has a great FAQ for new undergraduate students which you should go through. Also you need to read through the General FAQs to get an idea of what is allowed (and what is not) at Purdue dorms

Students interested to know more about on-campus housing in University Residences should visit the housing website for information about availability and contracting.

Off Campus housing.

Since you are guaranteed an on-campus dorm provided you have applied in time, I would not suggest living off campus, at least for the first year!

Staying on-campus allows your child to bed into Purdue, getting used to the campus, classes and making friends. Living off campus the first year might detach your child from the Purdue spirit, and commuting daily (especially in the cold winter months) is not easy. Also, although a new commuter meal plan has been announced from 2024-2025, the availability is limited according to the university’s website- so cooking for oneself from the first day will be an additional burden.

See also my post for Prepare for 2nd year Housing, as students are no longer guaranteed housing from the second year.

However, in case you have been late to apply or are not happy with your allocated dorm, you may choose to stay off campus. You will need to make your own arrangements prior to your arrival or your options will be very limited.

Generally, all off campus housing is for a full calendar year (unlike on campus which is only for the academic year). All utilities are included the on-campus rates but not on most off-campus apartments. So make sure you know the total you will pay for the year for off-campus housing (12 months x monthly rent plus utilities) when comparing it to the yearly total for the housing on campus. Begin your off-campus housing search by visiting Purdue’s West Lafayette Off-Campus Housing website. You can also contact Off-Campus Housing Services at (877) 895-1234 or here. There is also a slight out of date Off-campus guide that may assist.