Housing Accommodations
Disability access is afforded to ensure full participation in all aspects of student life. If you have a disability that affects your housing options, Student Disability Services (SDS) will work in collaboration with Housing & Residence Life to identify an accessible housing placement to address your disability-specific access needs.
A disability is defined as an impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Disability documentation that establishes a direct link between the disabling condition and the requested housing accommodation must be provided.
Examples of housing accommodations include: a wheelchair-accessible room, a private or semi-private bathroom, a single room, access to a kitchen, a ground-floor room and/or to be placed in a building with an elevator, installation of strobe alarms, or air conditioning.
Requesting Accommodations
As a reminder, students must complete all of the required Housing forms by the deadline to be eligible for a Housing accommodation. Students submitting requests for Housing accommodations must complete the Housing Application in early May after accepting your offer of admission and paying your enrollment deposit. Please indicate on the Housing Application that you will be working with SDS on an accommodated housing request.
Students can initiate their request for special accommodations through SDS by completing the Student Disability Services Request Form. We strongly encourage students seeking specific Housing accommodations to engage SDS as soon as possible. Please do not send accommodation requests or medical documentation to Housing & Residence Life.
The deadline to submit requests for accommodated housing for the 2023-24 academic year is June 16, 2023. Students who submit requests for Housing accommodations after this deadline will be placed on a waiting list and assigned to rooms that meet the approved access need as they become available. Openings may not occur within the first year of living on campus.
Housing Room Selection Process
Eligible students who have approved housing accommodations through Student Disability Services must still participate in room selection if they are required or wish to live in on-campus housing. Housing & Residence Life does not automatically assign students with approved accommodations to housing. Housing & Residence Life will not provide specific housing accommodations to any student who doesn’t have an active accommodation letter from Student Disability Services.
Students with approved housing accommodations may only select from bed spaces that are available during room selection. In the event that a student cannot select a bed space that meets their approved accommodation(s), they should select any available space and follow-up with Housing & Residence Life by emailing housing@uchicago.edu as soon as possible. In these instances, Housing & Residence Life will work directly with the student to re-assign them to a space that meets their approved accommodation(s). Depending on the accommodation, this may mean re-assignment to a different House or residence hall, although Housing & Residence Life will do their best to minimize those types of instances.