Story by Stephanie Mellar, Contributing writer

Students living on campus next semester had to fill out a new online housing form this semester with new features.

The Housing Office recently introduced a new application for residents to reserve their room, choose a new room or move to another residential college.

For students searching for a new roommate, this update introduces a new program to match students with a compatible roommate.

Incoming freshmen and students who want to find a new roommate but don’t have someone in mind can use new ‘Manage Roommates’ feature.

Ken Ashlock, associate director of Housing, related this new program to Facebook or a dating website.

Students create a profile, fill out personal preferences, and the program gives the student a list of other students and pairs them with a compatible roommate, he said.

Once completed, the program allows students to message potential roommates so they can meet up and see what they are like in real life. This will be the first semester it is being used.

“This online application will help students find a compatible roommate by greatly expanding personal preferences,” Ashlock said. “Students can state if they smoke, how clean they want the room to be, their activities, how many visitors they have over, and so on. The previous application was very limited on what we can ask.”

“Another thing that led us to adopting this online application is that it will be easier for incoming students to apply,” he said. “It’s all one step that they can do from home. They can check their status and change it if they want to, before if you wanted to change it you had to email me and there was a deadline for it, and now they can just change the form,”

Students who know who they want to room with will be able to use this tab to find their roommate, even if they are  incoming freshmen. However, both students will have to have an application in the system to be able to find, request and confirm each other as roommates.

To reserve a room students have to fill out the Online Housing Application. This application can be found on MyGate.

Students who want to apply for an exemption to live off campus still have to fill out an exemption application.

Exemptions include students who are married, students who have children, veterans of at least two years’ active military service, students who turn 21 before the first day of classes, students who have resided in residence halls for four complete semesters and students who commute to school daily from their parents’ residence within 50 miles.

Also exempt are non-regional tuition students who have achieved junior status, students who have been enrolled full time at a postsecondary institution for four semesters and regional tuition students who have achieved senior status.

The housing application will remain open until June 1. After June 1 Housing will assign incoming students their housing for the fall 2015 semester.

Students who will not be returning are required to submit a cancellation form. The deadline to cancel and be able to receive your housing deposit is June 1.

Students participating in an internship program or study abroad program next semester should transfer their deposit by using the Transfer Deposit Form.