No email today. People were saying they email the day before.
1 Like
How do they send you the contract, via email you applied with or are you expected to have set up your official UT email already as an incoming freshman for Fall 26?
Housing contracts will be emailed to the personal email everything goes to now and every housing email is also be mirrored on the housing portal under MESSAGES. My LH’s contract message from last year is still there in his MESSAGES tab, it came out 2/17/25. This was the 1st business day after the 15th.
UT had historically sent out contracts on the 1st and 15th of the month (or next business day if those fell on weekends) starting March 1 but last cycle, they backed that up and started February 15th and that 2/15 date is currently advertised online under Residence Hall Process now so expect Round 1 to out on 2/16 (1st business day after 2/15) if you have done the housing application and paid the $200 enrollment fee.
Somewhere along the route leading up to orientation, they will set up their UT email and then all their emails will start going there. But whatever Housing sends is always mirrored on their Housing Portal too. There was no specific timeline to set up the UT email and the DUO authentication thing to get that going other than “sometime before orientation.”
1 Like
Also - if they do get their contracts, there is a firm deadline to get that signed and sent back (all done in the housing portal) and pay the $300 housing prepayment. It’s like 2 weeks to get it done but really important. If you are offered a contract and dont get it done by the deadline, you basically have to re-apply for housing and you go to the end of the line…which at this time might mean apartment hunting so maybe do the contract and payment together with them so it doesn’t accidentally get “forgotten” - there were a few of those last year and students learned the hard way that at UT a deadline is a deadline. If they are under 18 you will have to sign it too anyways.
1 Like
Good luck for everyone who waits for answers this week!
3 Likes
What is “HOUSING CONTRACT” in layman terms (without the JARGON)? Don’t the admitted students need to find roommate(s) before they apply for a dorm room? How can they apply for a dorm room (if that’s what is meant by a HOUSING CONTRACT) when they haven’t even accepted the admission and they haven’t found their roommate(s) yet? There can be 2-people / 3-people / 4-people rooms, correct? Looking for very simple 5th grader explanation.
Housing application and signing a housing contract are 2 different things.
The housing contract is a legal contract similar any apartment lease. You want to live on-campus, you agree to pay the housing bill and sign and pay the deposit. There is a $300 deposit towards the housing bill and contract language about cancellation fees/terms your student must abide by (or the parent if the student is a minor). You can cancel by certain deadlines to live somewhere else but they keep your $300 (or more if you cancel very late). The only way to get the $300 back is by proving by a deadline you attended a different university.
Housing application has been open since August 2025 and does not require acceptance or enrollment. It does establish your place in line for dorm selection so many choose to roll the dice and pay that $100 application as soon as they submit their application to UT. I learned this the hard way decades ago and was too late for an on campus dorm and had to live in a private dorm so when it was my LH’s turn, he dropped his application to UT on 8/1 and submitted the housing portal application as soon as it opened to incoming freshmen in August 2024. He got the first selection time for dorms because of this.
Housing contracts happen AFTER acceptance and AFTER you pay the $200 enrollment to commit to UT.
Once you have a housing contract you can start searching for a roommate. You are not required to find a roommate - you can get a random person who is assigned to the other bed (the person choosing last in the room can see that person’s roommate profile info that applicants fill out in the housing application when they choose). Most just find people in their school districts or on go on social media. You have to form an official roommate group in the housing portal and the roommate with the earliest assigned dorm selection date chooses for both people. There are 3 and 4 person rooms but not many. Since the roommate with the earliest time must choose for both people, they must find an open room with 2 beds open. If the early roommate has an early pick, no problem. If both have late picks, they find the “popular” dorms wont work. They might not be full but all rooms have at least 1 person assigned so no open room to place both people in the roommate group. So that is the risk with a roommate group. My son had first pick, no problem. Our friends had day 2 pick and wanted San Jac. While there were beds open, no room was totally open so they had to go choose in Duren. To my knowledge there is no way to form a 3 or 4 person roommate group and because of the need to find an empty room for the group and the low number of 3 and 4 person rooms, you can see why you wouldnt want to do that.
3 Likes
New story on UT admissions insta asks people to submit their admission reaction videos. Could it mean today? Probably not but…
Our DD paid the $100 back in August ASAP. Assuming that has time stamped her for a dorm selection slot. So does a student need to pay the $200 as soon as they get acceptance, knowing they may have one other potential reach school to wait on until mid March? Or does the $100 hold that slot for the time being?
Housing will send out waves of contracts every 15th and 1st of the month (or closest business day after) starting 2/15 (which means 2/16). They only go to those who paid the $100 and paid the $200 enrollment in the order of the $100 payment. How many they send out in a waves is anyone’s guess.
IMHO you can safely wait for a March contract wave and sign/return/pay the $300 predeposit. If you wait til April you might be pushing the limit. Once they get enough back to be full, that’s it. It is possible to have an August application which would give you a first day pick to delay enrolling so long, they run out of contracts and then the 1st pick is meaningless.
Ivy day and Rice should be like 3/26 - hopefully they would still send a 4/1 wave of contracts to accommodate that, but no guarantee. How many go out and come back by then can vary cycle to cycle.
Once you have the signed contract, no matter which contract wave that happens in, you are set and the wave you signed has zero impact on the dorm selection time. As an August applicant you would have 1st selection as long as you have a signed contract.
The other option is to commit and enroll, pay the $200, sign the contract and pay the $300. If you decide to go elsewhere, you do get the $300 back if you show UT in writing you went to a different university by May 1 (i think that is the date to get it back by) but I do not think they give you the $200 enrollment back (you could ask on that, that $200 did get applied to the Fall tuition bill later so I could be wrong).
1 Like
I hope I hope.
Your resume isn’t there
thats optional
1 Like
My dd received the same message, called and was told that things are being entered and someone “pulled the wrong lever.”
Oh ok, cool, does that mean admissions are coming out today?
got email today saying results will be out on 13th.
2 Likes
Same
Reddit posts report a bunch of these error messages came up on things that were optional and resolved a few hours later. Check again. If it doesn’t resolve, I would call.
Looks like UT sent an email decisions will release Friday the 13th. Good luck everyone!
Do they offer alternative pathways to OOS applicants?