🏠 Carleton College — Parent Guide

🏠 How housing selection works at Carleton College

guarantees on-campus housing for all four years and requires all students to live on campus. With a small, tight-knit campus of approximately 2,100 undergraduates, nearly everyone knows their neighbors across class years.

First-Year Housing:All incoming students are assigned to a residence arriving on campus. makes placements based on a lifestyle questionnaire covering sleep schedules, study preferences, and social habits. Freshmen are distributed across a variety of halls rather than isolated in a single first-year area, which encourages integration with upperclassmen from day one.

Room Draw:After first year, students participate in an annual lottery-based room draw each spring. Students receive a random draw number within their class cohort; seniors draw first, then juniors, then sophomores. Students may draw as roommate pairs, triples, or suites depending on availability.

Themed and Special Communities:Carleton offers a small number of themed housing options, including language houses (French, Spanish, German, Japanese) where residents make an effort to use the language in daily conversation. These are applied for separately in the spring before the main room draw.

Small Campus Feel:Because Carleton's campus is compact and walkable, most dorms are within a short walk of academic buildings, dining, and the Sayles- Housing location is rarely a major concern — community, amenities, and room type tend to drive preference more than proximity.