Dorm Move-In Checklist

A 4.5 cubic foot fridge is allowed at one of these schools and banned at the next

The University of Rochester's residential life policy says students “may bring small refrigerators (no more than 4.5 cu. ft.) and small microwaves (900W or less)”. The University of Mary Washington's prohibited list includes “refrigerators 4.5 cubic feet and larger”. That is the same appliance, on the same number, permitted in one residence hall and confiscated in another.

Two more schools remove the question entirely by supplying the appliance. Miami University states that “compact refrigerators are provided by Campus Services” and, flatly, “Privately-owned refrigerators are not permitted”. The University of Texas at Austin lists “Microwaves or refrigerators (University Housing and Dining provides these)” under what to leave behind.

So before you buy the single most expensive thing on any dorm packing list, four named universities give four different answers, and one of them costs you the whole purchase. That is what this page is for. The checklist above is a generic list of 28 items; the rules that actually decide what you can own are published per institution, and they do not agree.

Seven items, six published housing policies, read 1 October 2026

“Conditional” means permitted only under a stated restriction described below. “Not stated” means the item did not appear in the pages read for that institution, which is not the same as permitted: ask before assuming. Each policy is linked in the sources at the bottom.

The microwave rule is not one rule, and wattage is not always the test

Rochester caps it at “900W or less”. Miami caps it lower, at “Microwaves not exceeding 700 watts ... (one per room)”. A 900-watt microwave is therefore fine at one and 200 watts over the line at the other.

Syracuse does something different again and does not name a wattage at all. Its policy requires a feature: “To enhance safety and reduce community disruptions caused by burnt food triggering fire alarms, only microfridges and microwaves with an internal smoke detection system and automatic shutdown are permitted in residence halls.” It adds that students “may either rent a microwave through Microfridge ... or bring their own, provided it meets this requirement”, and that noncompliant units “are prohibited and will be subject to removal”.

A 500-watt microwave would clear both wattage caps and still fail Syracuse's test. Checking the number on the box is not enough if your school's rule is about a feature rather than a figure.

The surge protector rule reverses depending on what you plug in

This is the rule students get wrong most consistently, because the obvious plan, one good power strip with everything running off it, is forbidden at several of these schools for the specific appliances you most want to plug in.

Rochester, in the same sentence that permits the fridge and microwave, says “they each must be plugged directly into the wall and not into a surge protector due to their higher wattage”. Brown says the same: “Appliances (e.g., refrigerators) should be plugged directly into existing electrical outlets, not into a surge protector.” Mary Washington: “Fridges must be plugged directly into the wall.”

Now the reverse. Rochester permits string lights only when “Each strand is plugged directly into a surge protector”, and Miami prohibits “extension cords without surge protection”. So within one room the fridge must bypass the strip and the lights must go through it. The rule is per-appliance, and a packing list with a single line reading “power strip” cannot express that.

On extension cords themselves, the published positions run from a near-total ban to an instruction to bring one. Brown: “Home-style extension cords are not allowed in residence halls”, and “By fire safety regulation, grounded 15-ampere rated surge protectors are the only type of extension cord allowed in residence halls”, with the warning that “We will confiscate ‘octopus plugs’ and extension cords that do not fit the approved ratings.” Syracuse prohibits “All general purpose extension cords (only UL-listed or ETL-certified grounded power strips with built-in circuit breaker are permitted)”. Mary Washington prohibits them “unless multiple outlet-type with built-in fuses and/or surge protector”. And UT Austin puts one on the bring list: “Extension cord or power strip. These must be UL-listed with a built-in circuit breaker and be designed for indoor use”.

Three of those four describe the same physical object. The difference is whether the policy was written as a prohibition with an exception or as a recommendation with a specification.

Lighting: allowed at one school, named and banned at another

Rochester permits string lights under the surge-protector condition above. UT Austin's leave-behind list reads: “Decorative lighting. This includes black light bulbs, glow lights, halogen lamps, holiday lights, lanterns with bulbs, neon lights, paper lamp shades, rope/string/strip lights (including LED) and torchiere lamps.” The parenthesis does the work there: LED is usually the escape clause on a fire-safety list, and UT Austin closes it explicitly.

Halogen is the one near-unanimous ban. Brown: “By fire safety regulation, halogen torchière floor lamps and halogen desk lamps are prohibited in residence halls”, and they “will be removed immediately”, the concern being “the open top design and the intense heat generated by the halogen bulb”. Rochester: “Halogen Bulbs/Lights: Are prohibited.” Syracuse bans “Halogen lamps and multiheaded lamps”. Mary Washington goes furthest of all and bans “halogen lamps, lava lamps, and incandescent bulbs”, which makes it the only one of the six where an ordinary incandescent desk lamp is also out.

The checklist above has a line for “Desk lamp”. At five of these six schools that line has a bulb-type condition attached to it that the checklist cannot show you.

Candles are the one thing every policy agrees on

Five of the six name candles, and all five ban them whether or not they have ever been lit. Rochester: “Even unburnt candles cannot be possessed in the residence halls.” UT Austin: “Candles (with or without burned wicks) or incense.” Mary Washington: “candles (with or without wicks), candle/wax melt/warmers, and incense.” Miami: “The burning and/or possession of candles, incense, and similar materials is a fire hazard and is prohibited by law and University policy in any public space, residence hall room, sorority suite, common area or on any exterior window sill.”

Brown attaches a price. Candles of all kinds “including birthday cake candles” are “prohibited in residence halls by Rhode Island fire safety regulations”, and “Candles will be confiscated when found and subjected to a fine of $100 per candle.”

Three of those policies also ban the wax warmer, which is the thing people buy once they learn the candle is out. Rochester classes them with cooking appliances, describing warmers as “basically hot plates”. Miami lists “candle and wax warmers” among prohibited appliances alongside “3-D printers”.

The fish are a real example of how precise these numbers get

Brown: “Pets are absolutely not allowed in the residence halls. The one exception is aquarium fish; tanks and aquariums may be no larger than 10 gallons.” Mary Washington permits “fish kept as pets in a 10-gallon or smaller aquarium”. UT Austin permits “fish in a five gallon or less aquarium”. Miami allows fish only, and explains why nothing else counts: “turtles and snails, for example, have been shown to carry diseases that affect humans”.

The same ten-gallon tank is legal at two of these schools and twice the permitted size at a third. It is a small thing, and it is exactly the shape of mistake that a generic packing list produces: the item is fine, the specification is not.

One more in that category, for anyone bringing a desktop. UT Austin asks for a “Cat 5 or 6 network cable to connect to the residence hall network (maximum length of 15 feet)”. The checklist above says “Ethernet cable”.

What this checklist does not know, including three things it gets wrong

The list above holds 28 items in six categories. It is a memory aid, nothing more, and these are its real limits:

It does not know your school's rules, and cannot. Every contradiction on this page is invisible to it. Its “Power strip (surge)”, “Desk lamp” and “Ethernet cable” lines all carry institution-specific conditions. Read your own housing contract and fire-safety policy before you buy anything electrical.

It does not know what your room already contains. At Miami and UT Austin the fridge and microwave are supplied, so two lines on any generic list are not just unnecessary but prohibited purchases.

Custom items are filed under “Added by you”, not into a category you choose. Whatever you add goes under that one heading, so a mini-fridge thermometer sits beside a textbook rather than with the kitchen things. Until 7 October 2026 it went into “School supplies” whatever it was, which put the input's own suggested example in the wrong category; the heading is honest now but it is still not a choice you get to make.

An item you add yourself cannot be brought back once you remove it. Every row has had a Remove button since 7 October 2026, and “Reset checks” now clears the checkmarks and puts back any default rows you removed, which is what makes a mis-click on a packing list survivable. It does not put back a row you typed, because restoring that would mean keeping your text after you asked for it to go, so that one is final. Until that date nothing could be removed at all: a typo stayed in the list permanently unless you cleared this site's browser data, which deleted all your progress with it.

There is no save button, because there is nothing to save. Every checkbox is written to this browser's storage the moment you tick it. A “Save progress” button used to sit above the list and re-save what was already saved, which was reassuring and made it look as though progress would otherwise be lost. It was removed on 7 October 2026.

“Print list” prints the list, since 1 October 2026. It calls the browser's ordinary print function, and the stylesheet now carries print rules that drop the header, the navigation, the prose and the footer. Until those rules existed you got all of it along with your checklist, and this paragraph said so; selecting just the list and using your browser's print-selection option was the workaround, and it still works.

Progress lives in this browser only. No account, no sync, no export. Ticking items on your laptop will not show them ticked on your phone, and clearing site data erases everything with no copy.

The two questions worth asking before you pack

Everything above reduces to two emails to your housing office, and they are better than any checklist.

1. “What appliances does my room already have, and what are the wattage, size and surge-protector rules for anything I bring?” That one question covers the fridge, the microwave, the power strip and the lamp, which between them are most of the money and nearly all of the confiscation risk.
2. “Where is the prohibited-items list for my building?” Ask for the building, not the university. Rochester's own policy refers to paperwork that may have to be produced for the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control, and Brown's candle ban cites Rhode Island fire safety regulations, so some of these rules come from the state rather than the school and can differ between halls.

Once you have those two answers, the checklist above is genuinely useful for the thing it is good at, which is not forgetting the towels. For the money side of moving in, the roommate bill splitter and the college budget planner are next door.

Sources

• Brown University, Residential Life restricted items: that home-style extension cords are not allowed and grounded 15-ampere rated surge protectors are the only type permitted, that appliances such as refrigerators should be plugged directly into wall outlets rather than a surge protector, the halogen torchière and desk lamp ban with its stated reason, that candles of all kinds including birthday cake candles are prohibited under Rhode Island fire safety regulations with a $100 per candle fine, and the 10-gallon aquarium limit as the sole exception to the pet ban.
• Miami University, Student Room Regulations: the 700-watt microwave limit of one per room, that compact refrigerators are provided by Campus Services and privately-owned refrigerators are not permitted, the prohibition on extension cords without surge protection, the appliance ban covering candle and wax warmers and 3-D printers, the possession as well as burning ban on candles and incense, and the fish-only pet rule with its stated reasoning.
• University of Rochester, Fire Safety and Prohibited Items: refrigerators of no more than 4.5 cu. ft. and microwaves of 900W or less, the requirement that both plug directly into the wall rather than a surge protector, the string-light condition that each strand plug into a surge protector, the prohibition on halogen bulbs and lights, that even unburnt candles cannot be possessed, wax warmers treated as hot plates, and the reference to New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control paperwork.
• Syracuse University, Prohibited Item Policy: that only microfridges and microwaves with an internal smoke detection system and automatic shutdown are permitted, with its stated reason and the removal of noncompliant units, and the ban on all general purpose extension cords, halogen lamps and multiheaded lamps.
• University of Mary Washington, Prohibited in Residence Halls: the ban on refrigerators 4.5 cubic feet and larger with the one-per-room limit and two for quads, that fridges must be plugged directly into the wall, the extension cord exception for multiple-outlet types with built-in fuses or surge protection, the ban on candles with or without wicks and on wax warmers, and the ban on halogen lamps, lava lamps and incandescent bulbs.
• The University of Texas at Austin, What to Bring and Leave Behind: that microwaves and refrigerators are provided and should be left at home, the decorative-lighting ban explicitly including LED rope, string and strip lights, the candle ban with or without burned wicks, the five-gallon aquarium limit, and the UL-listed extension cord or power strip specification with the 15-foot maximum network cable length.

Every quotation above was read from the named institution's own published housing or fire-safety policy on 1 October 2026. These six were chosen because their rules are published and disagree with each other, not because they are representative: there are thousands of residence halls and this page describes six policies. Your own housing contract and campus fire-safety rules are the only authority for your room, and an item marked “not stated” above means only that it did not appear in the pages read. Packing suggestions only. More: the rest of the MyCampusKit tools.