The Resident Advisor (RA) position (undergraduate and graduate level) is an employed position during the academic year with the Office of College Houses & Academic Services (CHAS) at the University of Pennsylvania. The RA creates a positive sense of community and shares resources with residential students living in the College Houses. This is accomplished through providing opportunities for student engagement and involvement, developing supportive relationships with individual residents, building an inclusive community, addressing incidents as part of an on-duty rotation, and educating students on resources and their rights and responsibilities as identified in the Code of Student Conduct and other University policies.
View full RA Position Description and Agreement
Resident Advisor applications are currently open.
Deadline to apply:
February 10, 2025 for undergraduates
April 4, 2025 for graduate students
To apply:
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Log into Workday at www.myworkday.com/upenn/
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Your Workday homepage should have an announcement about Student Employment as seen below. Click on the link for Student Job Search within that announcement.
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This will ensure that you are logged into the correct student role in Workday to be eligible to apply for the RA position.
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In the Find Jobs for Student Employment search linked in that announcement, search for "Resident Advisor".
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Clicking "True" on the "Is Evergreen" filter will make it much easier to find the RA position in Workday.
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This should locate the job listing for the Resident Advisor position, and allow you to apply.
WHAT'S THE PROCESS?
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APPLICATION STAGE: Click on the application link above that matches your undergraduate/graduate status. The RA application will gather information about the applicant's academic status, residential interests, program community interests, and other pertinent data.
- All applicants must submit the following as a SINGLE PDF that includes:
- A letter of intent which answers the following questions:
- Why are you interested in the RA position? Include residential population/program community of interest (if any).
- What makes a strong college house community? How will you as an RA contribute to it?
- Please tell us about previous positions you've held and how they will help you succeed as an RA.
- A résumé
- A letter of reference (this letter can come from anyone who can speak to the applicant's skill-set as it relates to an RA position.)
- If the applicant is a graduate student, the completed Academic Approval Form must be included.
- The RA application will be considered incomplete if any of the above elements is omitted and will not be processed.
- INTERVIEW STAGE: Interview offers will be communicated directly to candidates by a College House. A candidate may receive interview offers from multiple Houses and may decline or accept any interview offer. Declining an interview offer is an indication that a candidate is not interested in serving as an RA for that residential population.
- MATCH STAGE: Interviewed candidates will receive instructions for the match process. The match process is candidate-leaning, which means that it takes the candidate's ranking of their House preferences into account above what each College House has ranked each candidate who interviewed. It is the candidate's best interest to rank every College House they interviewed with. If the candidate does not provide rankings by the deadline, they will not be matched. For more about the match process, view our video.
NEW UNDERGRADUATE APPLICANT TIMELINE
The application deadline for new undergraduate applications is February 10th. Interviews will be scheduled from February 10th through February 21st. On the week of February 24th, the match process will be conducted and offer letters will be extended to the selected candidates.
NEW GRADUATE APPLICANT TIMELINE
The application deadline for new graduate applications is April 4th. Please note that graduate applicants must be enrolled in a full-time degree-granting program in order to qualify. Interviews for graduate applicants will be scheduled from April 4th to April 17th. On the week of April 21st, the match process will be conducted and offer letters will be extended to the selected candidates.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- In this position, RAs are members of a union and are represented by OPEIU 153.
- If you have questions about RA positions, please email us at chas@collegehouses.upenn.edu.