housing

Our Communities at UC Merced

Living on campus offers more than just a place to eat and sleep. A significant amount of experiential learning occurs in the residence halls. Students living on campus are presented with opportunities to develop valuable skills as they transition to UC Merced and prepare for life thereafter. Living Learning Communities (LLCs) at UC Merced, as one example, provide structured engagement opportunities for students to develop these skills.

• The On-Campus Housing FAQ has answers for everything you need to know about living at UC Merced. For everything else, please visit housing.ucmerced.edu.
• There are virtual tours of most of our residence halls, if you'd like to get a peek at where you'll be living. Two new housing facilities, Sentinel Rock and El Portal will be open when you arrive in the fall, so please check back later for those virtual tours.
• Move-in weekend isn't until August, but if you're doing your shopping early, please take a look at our list of what will be in your room, what you should bring and what you should definitely leave at home.

To apply for housing, please fill out the housing preference form/application at housing.ucmerced.edu/apply by the deadline. UC Merced requires all incoming first-year students to live on campus for two academic years, unless they qualify for a residency exemption waiver. For a complete list of residency exemptions, please visit housing.ucmerced.edu/residency-exemptions.

Under normal operations, all incoming first year students are required to live on campus for two academic years. It is not yet possible to know now whether the COVID-19 pandemic will result in changes to operations in student housing and residence education in Academic Year 2020-2021. Consequently, we may not be able to meet all of the requests for on-campus housing that would allow students to fulfill UC Merced’s two-year residency requirement. However, we will keep our residence halls open unless we are required by public health authorities to close. We will provide you with an update once the campus makes a decision for the fall.