Housing & Dining
The Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses offer premium residential options for both freshmen and continuing students. GW’s 32 distinctive residence halls range from traditional, coed residential options and apartment-style residence halls with private bathrooms to Scholars' Village townhouses for upperclassmen and independent-living high-rises.
Freshmen and sophomore students are required to live in University housing, and GW aims to provide on-campus housing for students who want to live in the residence hall system throughout their undergraduate years. Our commitment to a complete undergraduate academic experience includes residence-hall programming for students in University-sponsored housing. This interest-based house system enables students to create living and learning cohorts that match their extracurricular interests.
Residence Life:
- Undergraduates who live on campus: 73%
- Number living at Foggy Bottom: 6,800
- Number living at Mount Vernon: 490
- Freshmen who live on campus: 100%
- Number of residential facilities: 50
- Number of residence halls: 32
- Number of townhouses: 18
Residence hall amenities include: cable television, individual data and voice connections for each student, microwaves and refrigerators in each room and weekly housekeeping service (in freshman halls only).
Campus Security:
Both GW campuses are located in safe residential neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. In addition to the resources provided by the DC Metropolitan Police Department and 36 other police agencies patrolling our neighborhoods, the University Police Department provides the following:
- 24-hour operation with 115 uniformed officers
- Security services include emergency blue light phones, campus shuttle, bicycle registration, 4RIDE campus ride service and Alert DC text messaging service
- All residence halls are fitted with card readers and are accessible only with a student ID access card
Dining:
GW students will find no shortage of dining options on campus and within the surrounding neighborhoods. GW’s dining options eliminate the “paying for missed meals plan” shortcoming of most traditional college meal plans. GW options also do away with set meal times. Students can eat whenever and whatever they like.
Students manage their dining expenses, as well as other personal expenses, through the “Colonial Cash” plan. Colonial Cash is a flexible, declining balance spending program that can be used at dining and retail locations on and off campus. It is administered through the GWorld identification card program.
- Number of dining hall locations: 7
- Number of on-campus dining options: 24
- Number of dining partner venues: More than 90
- Food options: vegetarian, sushi, home-cooked meals, sandwiches, salads, pasta, smoothies, wraps, pizza, wings, soups, kosher
Our students also have favorite off-campus eateries, including The Thai Place, Froggy Bottom Pub, Lindy’s Red Lion, Baja Fresh, Au Bon Pain and Listrani’s.
See Our Residence Halls
There are 32 residence halls at GW – 26 on Foggy Bottom and six at Mount Vernon. View the room diagrams and amenities now.
The GW Experience
Students
All in the Family
Greg and Heather Hachenburg talk about their undergraduate experience at GW, one of many sibling pairs to share in the Colonials legacy.
Creating Next Generation Leaders
GW program helps female students connect with leading women across a variety of fields and develop their roles as future women in leadership.
Where the City is a Classroom
Freshman volunteers experience life beyond Foggy Bottom...
Faculty
Fighting Neglected Diseases
GW professor works to eradicate diseases that affect the health, education and economic development of the world's poorest people.
Building the Super Computer
Pioneering lab puts GW at the forefront of high-speed computing and offers GW students unprecedented access to science and skills of the future.
Blast From the Past
Students map an ancient—and dramatic—eruption as part of a geological research program in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains.
Alumni
Giving Back to the District of Columbia
D.C. public health director calls GW education the foundation of his career.
GW Opens Doors
A chance encounter with a GW alumna helped give one GW undergraduate, an aspiring broadcast journalist from Texas, his big break.
The Legend Lives On
The $2 million bequest commitment caps a lifetime of philanthropy and service to GW, establishing the Elyse B. and Donald R. Lehman Endowed Professorship in Theoretical Physics.