Application information

At Student Living, we value equity and diversity within our vibrant residential community. In line with our Looking Ahead 2020 - 2025 Strategic Plan we provide:

• Guaranteed accommodation in Newcastle for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island students. See below for more information regarding the University of Newcastle's Establishing Status process.

• Prioritisation for those coming from regional, remote and international locations. Student Living will prioritise accommodation applications for students from a regional or remote domestic or international location over those that reside locally. Please note that prioritisation does not equate to a guarantee of accommodation.

For 2026, we are offering guaranteed accommodation to high-school leavers who have received a first-round Early Entry Program offer. Exclusions apply.

How do we allocate rooms?

As well as providing eligible students with guaranteed accommodation/priority allocation, Student Living also actively and intentionally builds diversity within our community using room profiling and allocation frameworks.

We seek to create a balance of new and returning residents from different backgrounds and across all areas and levels of study. We do our best to ensure the most diverse community we can through allocating a mix of different profiles within each living environment/apartment.

The overall balance tends to shift somewhat towards new residents as these students, in the vast majority of cases, are new to Newcastle and have not yet built the connections that so many of our returners have that allows them to live off-campus with friends.

A resident profile includes gender identification, returner or new resident status, and whether the student is international or domestic. Our aim is to encourage our residents to meet new people and get the most out of their residential experience.

The two biggest influences on the assessment of an accommodation applications are:

1. When you apply – applying early is vital. Student Living received more than 3,000 applications for 2025 so it is very important that applications are received early – we recommend applying the day that applications open.

2. What living environment and room preferences you select – we offer a range of Living Environments which helps enable us in matching residents who have a similar approach to living. For example, our Lifestyle offering might be for those who prefer a lower noise and lower alcohol environment. You can read more about our Living Environments here. By being specific as to the room types or residences that an applicant would like to live in, this does narrow the ability for Student Living to be able to provide an offer as we only have a limited number of some room types. Therefore, we recommend you select ‘Any Offer’ as one of your preferences this means that we can consider you for any availability should your other preferences not be available.

Students who do not identify with the guaranteed accommodation categories still have an opportunity to secure accommodation. It’s important to get your application in as soon as possible as after guaranteed offers are made, our admissions team will filter the application list by the time of completed application. They will consider this against the room types you have selected in your application.

In addition, we have a local postcode exclusion zone. Meaning that we typically look to offer places for those outside of the below postcodes:

Accommodation at Callaghan excludes students located in the following postcodes:

2259, 2261, 2262, 2263, 2264, 2265, 2267, 2278, 2280, 2281, 2282, 2283, 2284, 2285, 2286, 2290, 2287, 2289, 2290, 2291, 2292, 2293, 2294, 2295, 2296, 2297, 2298, 2299, 2300, 2302, 2303, 2304, 2305, 2306, 2307, 2308, 2315, 2316, 2317, 2318, 2319, 2320, 2321, 2322, 2323, 2324, 2325, 2326, 2327, 2334, 2335, 2420, 2421.

Accommodation at Ourimbah excludes students located in the following postcodes:

2071, 2074, 2075, 2076, 2077, 2079, 2080, 2081, 2082, 2083, 2084, 2085, 2086, 2087, 2096, 2097, 2099, 2100, 2101, 2102, 2103, 2104, 2105, 2106, 2107, 2108, 2156, 2157, 2158, 2159, 2250, 2251, 2256, 2257, 2258, 2259, 2260, 2261, 2262, 2263, 2264, 2265, 2267, 2280, 2281, 2282, 2283, 2284, 2286, 2306, 2325, 2756, 2775.

A breakdown of the quantity of apartments and rooms is available here.

Guaranteed Accommodation - Establishing Status

Indigenous heritage is sacred to every person.

For the purposes of some University processes such as identified scholarships and prioritised entry schemes, an administrative process called “Establishing Status” needs to be followed, in which applicants provide records surrounding their heritage. Access to guaranteed accommodation for new Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander residents is based on the completion of the Establishing Aboriginality and/or Torres Strait Islander Status Procedure.¹

Applicants with a student login can submit their application to establish their Aboriginal and/or Torres Island Strait status with the University by following the link to the Establishing Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Status Application Form and logging in to complete the online form.

If you do not have a current student login, you can complete this form and send it to PVCIndigenous@newcastle.edu.au

For more information on how to complete the Establishing Status process please contact PVCIndigenous@newcastle.edu.au

^{1 Should accommodation applicants not wish to complete the Establishing Status process their accommodation application will be assessed in line with other applications and no guarantee applied.}