2025 Room Selection updates for Barnard and Columbia students

Columbia and Barnard announced some important changes to housing registration that could affect your options. If this is your first time going through the housing lottery, or even your third, here are some important updates to keep in mind for 2025 housing registration.

Hartley Hall will be unavailable for room selection, as the dorm will be undergoing full-building renovation and is expected to reopen in fall 2027. Due to the renovations, the Hartley Hospitality Desk will be relocated to Furnald Hall.

A new residence hall located at 611 W. 112th St. will be available this registration cycle. The new addition is a six-story corridor-style residence hall featuring 76 double rooms, seven single rooms, and seven single-use bathrooms on each floor. Due to the limited number of singles, students who wish to live in this dorm are encouraged to participate as a group.

The building underwent renovation in 2024 and will feature entirely new furnishings. 611 W. 112th St. will also be Columbia’s first all-electric undergraduate residential building. Residents will have individual room controls for heating and cooling, access to a print station on the first floor, and kitchen lounges on each floor, with a larger communal kitchen on the lower level. Free laundry facilities are also available on the lower level, and three outdoor courtyards can be accessed through first-floor common areas and corridors. This dorm will be offered at the upperclassman housing rate. Learn more about the dorm here!

East Campus townhouses will be renovated during summer 2025. These renovations include updates to kitchens, bathrooms, and common lounges on the first and second floors. East Campus will still be available for housing registration.

Construction projects near dorms may also impact campus housing areas. Traffic near Wien Courtyard may be affected due to ongoing Law School construction, and interior renovations are planned for a Barnard property adjacent to 47 Claremont.

To help students navigate the selection process, the Housing Portal will feature a demonstration mode available from March 14 until room selection appointments begin on April 1. This feature will allow students to familiarize themselves with the selection system in advance.

Additionally, the selection portal will now default to a “flexible match” view, meant to make it easier for group leaders to view and select available rooms. The “flexible match” view will display all available rooms that fit a group’s size. This includes suites larger than the group size as potential options, and allows filtering by room type using “Room Preferences” checkboxes.

Columbia Housing has revised building categories to better reflect housing options. Apartment-style housing includes private or shared bedrooms with exclusive access to amenities such as kitchens, living areas, and bathrooms. Suite-style housing consists of private or shared bedrooms arranged around shared amenities such as bathrooms and limited kitchen facilities. Corridor-style housing features private or shared bedrooms with shared floor-wide bathrooms and common areas.

Changes have also been made to the Barnard-Columbia Housing Exchange. Twenty-five bed spaces in Columbia’s sorority and Special Interest Communities housing are reserved for Barnard students. In exchange, 25 Columbia students may live at Barnard. However, for the 2025-26 selection process, all 25 spaces in sororities and SICs must be filled before any additional Barnard seniors can enter Columbia’s general room selection.

Columbia students in groups with Barnard students will not be able to enter room selection until the end of Barnard’s room selection on April 18. These groups will be placed on the Guaranteed Assignment List and prioritized by lottery number. To be considered, groups must be limited to one Columbia student and one Barnard senior.

Barnard seniors entering Columbia’s Room Selection will receive a point value of 35. This is lower than the 40 points given to Columbia seniors, but higher than the 30 points given to Columbia juniors. This means that Columbia seniors will have the highest priority, while mixed groups with Columbia and Barnard have a higher priority than rising Columbia juniors.

With these updates in mind, we hope your housing registration goes smoothly. Be sure to stay informed and take note of the changes to ensure you make the best choices. If you want to learn more about your housing odds, make sure to check out the Shaft!