With the year quickly approaching a close, returning students opting to live in residence halls are looking into room selection. After submitting a housing contract and deposit of $200, students can pick from several spaces on campus, with some seeing updates for next year.
Students participating in experiential living opportunities, triples and upperclassmen room selections can pick Wednesday, March 19, through Thursday, March 20. Other students in general and mixed rooming selection will pick from Monday, March 24, to Thursday, March 27.
For the 2025-2026 year, Ohio University is introducing two new experiential living opportunities for students and will be moving housing for programs such as the Ohio Honors Programs and the Fine Arts community.
"Ohio University Housing and Residence Life is always looking to expand partnerships and offer new opportunities to provide students with the best residence experience,” Johnna Matulja, the HRL’s Director for Business Operations, wrote in an email. “Housing and Residence Life will continue to offer students the opportunity to live in community-based living experiences across campus.”
The RGB gaming community will be located in Boyd Hall on the second floor and is designed to offer students interested in game design, competitive online gaming, and esports teams. The experiential living opportunity is through a partnership with the Scripps College of Communication.
Matulja said students involved in the OHIO Esports team and the Virtual Reality and Game Development majors from Scripps are welcome to live in the RGB gaming community. The community is open to non-competitive and competitive gamers who want to better their gaming skills.
“OHIO HRL is excited to offer this new gaming community to any student passionate about gaming, esports and the virtual competitive world,” Matulja wrote in an email. “We are currently developing additional programmatic opportunities and online infrastructure to help students engage with each other in person and in the gaming world.”
Students in the Honors Tutorial College, 1804 Scholars and Ohio Honors Program were located this past school year in Washington, Gamertsfelder and Boyd halls. For the 2025-2026 school year, Jefferson Hall will be the honors building for freshmen and Read Hall will be the honors for sophomores.
“Housing and Residence Life regularly works with academic colleges and university departments to configure halls in support of student success,” Matulja wrote in an email. “Historically assigned across five different residence halls, the honors community will relocate to Jefferson Hall to centralize the various honors and scholars programs into two halls to enhance programmatic support and student resources.”
Matulja said this school year, Jefferson Hall housed traditional first-year students with no program associated with their learning. The change will not impact the housing of current students living in Jefferson Hall.
Aubrey Murphy and Ellie Stasko, freshmen majoring in chemical engineering, are rooming together in a triple in Adams Hall with another friend. Stasko said they decided to pick the triple room selection time because they had late general selection times.
“I don't think we would have been able to live together, which would have sucked,” Stasko said. “We would not have really gotten a good room. I think we would have been in one of the houses, like Ewing house, and we would not have lived together.”
Stasko said most people are trying to live in New South residence halls, such as Carr, Tananka, Sowle and Luchs halls, especially her other engineering friends. Both of the girls were planning to do one of these residence halls before finding out they had bad pick times.
“A couple of my friends have pretty early pick times, and I know they are all trying to go for the (River Park Apartments) and then the ones with a little bit later are all going for New South,” Murphy said. “I haven't heard anything about anyone trying to live on West.”
Stasko said she chose to live in the 1804 Scholars housing this past school year because she was living with a random roommate. Stasko said she is opting not to live in the housing for the 2025-2026 school year so she can live with Murphy and their other friend.
“I think (the honors halls) would have been better, but I would rather live with people I like in a bad dorm than the people I hate in a great dorm,” Stasko said.
Sydney Blackstone, a freshman majoring in nutrition science, said she is planning to room with her friend Averyanna Magers, a freshman majoring in exercise physiology, and wants to live on South Green.
Blackstone said she wants at least a laundry room and a personal bathroom. Magers said having a close dining hall is not that important, but having a ping pong table or a pool table is.
“I like possibly having a ping pong table or a pool table just so you can hang out with your friends and have a good time, like, in the dorm if it's too cold outside to go places,” Magers said.
Brooklyn Hart, a freshman majoring in health care administration, said she is hoping to live in Bromley Hall next year. She also said location is important to consider, especially because every green has a different vibe.
“Each dorm area, I feel, has its own atmosphere like New South is by ping, so if you like working out, it's right there,” Hart said. “Bromley is by Court Street, so if you work up there, it's kind of convenient.”
