Cowell Housing

New Students

As a new student in the residential buildings, you may be assigned to a single, triple, or quad room. If you have never shared a living space before, having a roommate may be a challenge, but meeting the challenge of sharing and learning from alternate perspectives can be infinitely rewarding.  It is essential that you engage with your new living arrangement, and the students with whom you will be sharing living space, with an open, interested, tolerant, and considerate attitude.  Students come to UC Santa Cruz and Cowell College from a wide variety of backgrounds. You will invariably meet people who have lives and experiences that are unfamiliar to you.  Assigning rooms and roommates is not an easy task. One important consideration for making roommate assignments is your Cowell College Housing Application/Contract and your Lifestyle Questionnaire. Within the application we ask what we think is important for determining compatible lifestyles. We will do our best to find you a compatible roommate, but please do not assume that your roommate will share all your lifestyle preferences.

Continuing Students

As a continuing student at Cowell College, you may live in either the residence halls or the apartments. Cowell apartments are availbale only for continuing students, while the residence halls boast a mix of continuing and first year residents.

A video of our housing presentation regarding room selection for fall 2023 can be viewed here.

Applying for Housing

Applications are submitted through the student housing portal at www.studenthousing.ucsc.edu.

Details as to the process are available here.

To contact the Housing Office please call 831 459-2173, cwst-housing@ucsc.edu.