The Housing and Residential Life Office assigns roommates based on the information provided on your housing application. Please be honest about your living preferences—the cleanliness of your room, what time you go to bed, your expectations regarding noise—as we do our best to match roommates who are compatible in these areas.
You may already know a specific person who you would like to live with, and you may request to live with them by indicating the preference on your housing application. We make every effort to accommodate the preference when both students request each other.
Regardless of who you share a room with and what your relationship with that person is, it’s important to be honest about your expectations for the living space, and to be respectful of your roommate’s needs. Students in our residence halls come from a variety of socioeconomic, cultural, and spiritual backgrounds, and as a result there are many different expectations of what having a roommate should mean. In order for you to have the best possible experience, it’s important that you begin this honest assessment with your housing application, and that you continue to have open and honest dialogue with your roommate throughout the year.
Roommate Agreement Form
You and your roommate(s) will be given a Roommate Agreement Form for you to review and use. Having an open dialogue about your lifestyle and expectations can sometimes be difficult, and this process is designed to help you start the conversation and staff are available to help facilitate as needed. Here are a few things to consider:
- How clean do you expect to keep your room?
- Are you a morning person or a night person?
- Do you prefer an environment that’s quiet or are you comfortable with noise?
- Where do you intend to study and complete projects?
- Which of your belongings can and cannot be borrowed?
- When are visitors welcome in your room? For how long?
- How much are you willing to share about your personal life?
- What do you expect from your roommate?
- How might your behaviors and preferences impact your roommate?
- How do you intend to solve disputes?
- How do you behave when you are angry, depressed, stressed, or happy? How do you expect your roommate to behave when you are experiencing any of these emotions?
Gender-Inclusive Housing Option
Our gender-neutral housing option allows you to be considered for roommate pairings outside traditional gender-dependent roommate criteria, and you may share a room with someone who identifies with a different gender than you do. You must select that you would want Gender-Neutral Housing as part of the application in order to be housed with a person with a different gender identity from your own.
We created the gender-neutral housing option in an effort to provide a healthy, inclusive, and welcoming living environment for all of our students. We understand that gender identity can be complex and that the gender identity spectrum not only includes people who identify as male and female, but also those who identify as transgender, FTM, MTF, and gender queer, among others. The traditional gender binary is problematic for many people, and can often force residents to live in a situation that they may not be comfortable in. The gender-neutral housing option offers residents a new and dynamic opportunity to be assigned a roommate with whom they will be comfortable living.
Only students who specifically request to live in gender-neutral housing will be considered for this type of housing. Students who do not wish to be considered for a gender-neutral housing assignment have to select no on the application and will be matched with a roommate following our roommate pairing procedures.
If you have any questions regarding our gender-neutral housing option, please contact us at housing@sfai.edu or 415.351.3556.
Substance-Free Housing Option
Our substance-free housing option allows you to live in a room of individuals who are committed to sobriety. We recognize that there are many reasons why an individual may choose a substance-free room in a residence hall. These reasons may include personal lifestyle preferences, religious beliefs, or lifestyle changes related to recovery. As such, substance-free is a choice that Housing and Residential Life supports and encourages as a way to help students living in the residence halls succeed academically and socially.
