Almost everything written about roommates assumes you have to find them first. That is one of two routes into a shared suite, and the other one is more common here. They are worth separating, because the thing you should ask for at application is different in each case.
If you already know who you want to live with
Apply together and take a suite as a set. A suite has three bedrooms, so a group of three fits one exactly — no spare room filled by somebody you have not met, and no fourth person to find, because the city caps a suite at three.
The thing to ask for is the suite, not three rooms: say at application that you are applying as a group and want to be housed together, and give the names. Rooms in a suite are not necessarily the same grade, which is worth knowing before anyone is disappointed — the room types page shows what differs between them.
If you are coming on your own
You are placed by schedule and sleeping hours rather than by whichever bed is empty. Somebody on night shifts and somebody with nine o’clock lectures do not belong in the same suite, and that is knowable before anyone moves in.
Which means the useful thing to do at application is tell us the truth about your hours. When you leave in the morning, whether you work nights, whether you study at home or on campus, whether you cook at eleven. None of that is a preference form for its own sake; it is the only information the placement can use.
Individual leases matter on both routes
Among strangers the case is obvious: on a joint lease one person’s departure can become everyone else’s rent. Among friends it is less obvious and matters at least as much.
A group of three signing one joint lease has tied three sets of plans together for the whole term. One person takes a job in Calgary in February and the other two are covering a third of the rent for a room nobody is in. Leases here are individual even when you apply as a group, so a change of plan stays with the person whose plan changed. It is a better arrangement for the friendship than for the paperwork.
What we will not promise
Worth saying plainly, because the alternative is you finding out later.
We will not promise that a suite stays unchanged for your whole term. People’s plans move; if a room empties we fill it, and the next person is placed on the same basis you were. We also will not promise a particular individual — placement works on schedules, not on personalities.
What is fixed: three bedrooms to a suite and never more, your own lockable room, rent that is only ever yours, and two amenity floors to go to when three people all need the table at once. Rooms start at $220 a week with every utility inside that.
