Guelph Residences Compared: South, North, East and Villages

This is Guelph's own comparison of undergraduate communities. A traditional room shares a community washroom, kitchenette and common space. A suite is a single or double bedroom with a shared bathroom and either a kitchenette (Lambton Hall) or a full kitchen (East Residence). Townhouses and apartments have a full kitchen and a shared living room.

Guelph notes that room types and capacity can change from year to year. It also says every residence is an 8 to 10-minute walk from the heart of campus.

South Residence is three connected halls: Mountain, Prairie and Maritime. Guelph calls it the largest residence complex in Canada. Rooms sit in stacked towers of 4 to 10 students, and washrooms are in each alcove. Mountain and Prairie each have a full dining hall.

Johnston Hall is the stone building with the clock tower. It's a co-ed traditional residence for 315 students, mostly in double and triple rooms. Lambton Hall added suite-style rooms on its first and second floors, with shared ensuite washrooms there and shared lockable washrooms on the third and fourth floors.

East Residence houses 610 students in suites of 6, 8, 10 or 12 people, in single and double rooms. Gordon Hall has double rooms with shared ensuite bathrooms, and Guelph says about 80% of its rooms have queen beds. East Village and West Village are open to both first-year and upper-year students.

Guelph publishes one rate per room type and area, billed half in each semester. It labels these 2026-27 fees as tentative and subject to change. The mandatory residence insurance is already included. An Interhall Council activity fee of $28.84 a semester is charged on top.

A meal plan is required in South, North and Gordon Hall. Guelph's most popular plan, the Full plan, costs $7,050 for 2026-27. The smallest plan, Minimum, costs $5,750. In East Residence and the Villages, you can skip the plan or choose a smaller, reloadable Ultra Food Plan instead.

Guelph has published its Fall 2027 to Winter 2028 rules. The residence application opens on February 1, 2027, and you need an offer of admission before you can apply. You don't have to pay the deposit to submit the application.

If you're an Ontario high school student with an offer before March 1, you're guaranteed a room if you apply by April 15, 2027, and accept your offer through OUAC and pay the $750 deposit by June 1, 2027. The guarantee still holds if your first offer came before March 1 and a different program offers you a place later.

An offer after March 1 doesn't carry a guarantee. You join a wait list ordered by the date and time you submit your application. Guelph's pages disagree on one point here: the application page says you don't need the deposit to join the wait list, but the FAQ says only completed applications with the $750 deposit are added. Pay it by June 1 if you want to be safe, and remember it's non-refundable once your place is confirmed.

The $750 deposit is applied to your Winter 2028 residence fees. Guelph keeps it unless you cancel while you're still in the residence queue or on the wait list, your offer of admission is revoked, or you're granted a deferral. Guelph advises waiting to pay until you're sure you're coming.

You can appeal a lost deposit within 30 days of ending your contract. Guelph considers reasons beyond your control, such as a medical or family emergency, with documents. Choosing to commute or live off campus doesn't count. Once you've moved in, leaving brings a prorated refund minus the deposit, and there's no residence fee refund after November 1 for fall or March 1 for winter.

After the deadline, every applicant gets a random lottery number. When your number comes up, you get your first choice if it still has space, then your second, and so on. If all your choices are full, the system picks the room that best matches your preferences. Applying early gives you no advantage.

Guelph asks whether you care more about room type or building. You can also rank a Residence Learning Community as your top priority. Choosing an Academic Cluster overrides your building choice, because you go wherever that cluster is located.

You pick these on the residence application. Guelph runs 16 Academic Clusters for first-year students in the same program, supported by an upper-year Cluster Leader. Their buildings change from year to year based on demand.