The University of Massachusetts Amherst housing system is made up of six dormitory areas, two apartment areas, and one hotel. At UMass Amherst, first year students are required to live on campus. Housing is open to all full-time undergraduate students, regardless of year. Upper-class students who have continuously lived on campus during their first and sophomore years are guaranteed housing as long as they choose to live on campus. If, however, a student is admitted after their sophomore year, or moves off campus, and wants to move back onto campus, they are not guaranteed housing, but instead must go through a housing lottery, since demand outstrips supply. Building and room selection is accomplished by a complex system that takes into account building seniority as well as class year; those choosing to move from their building are subject to a lottery system, There are around 12,700 students living on-campus. making it have the third-largest on-campus residential population in the United States.
Students living on the UMass campus live in one of the seven residential areas: North, Sylvan, Northeast, Central, Orchard Hill, and Southwest. Several residential areas have a student-run business. All campus residence halls are staffed by Resident Assistants, who provide programming and community development, as well as enforce policies, and have quiet hours, which start at 9 pm on weekdays, 12 midnight on the weekends, but may vary from hall to hall.
Northeast, is across the street from North and diagonal to Sylvan. The residential area consists of nine buildings assembled in a rectangle surrounding a grassy quad. Northeast is one of the oldest residential areas on campus and has what one might call classic academic architecture, consisting of red brick buildings and gabled/shingled roofs. Buildings of note in Northeast include Johnson, which is an all female dorm; Hamlin, which is an all male dorm; as well as Lewis, which provides international students with 9-month housing and is home to one of the Residential Wellness Center facilities offered on campus. Thatcher is unique because it has a foreign language program, which includes several floors, each with a different language. The residents of these floors are encouraged to speak the language they are studying with their floor-mates. Dwight Hall offers the Asian-American Student Program. Crabtree Hall and Leach Hall house the Engineering Residential Academic Programs (RAPs). There is also the 2 in 20 Floor, which fosters a positive connection with the campus's LGBT community. Its location is undisclosed to protect its residents' privacy. However, no information has been found to back up the existence of this floor.
In Fall 2008, the cluster of Crabtree, Mary Lyon, and Knowlton (CMLK) became all-freshmen housing, as Northeast joined the First Year Experience program to offer freshman-only living. The previously all-female Knowlton became co-ed, and Johnson became the new all-female dorm.