How we get these rules right

1. Sources

School rules come only from the official university housing / residence-life page — a .edu page or an official housing PDF. Student blogs, roundups, and AI answer boxes are not sources; during research they routinely conflicted with the official page. Product specs come from the manufacturer or a major retailer product page. We currently cite 25 official school sources across 25 schools and 13 products.

2. What every claim carries

Each rule and spec traces to a source record with the URL, the date we accessed it, and a verbatim excerpt. If a school doesn’t publish a number, we say so and record it as “no published cap” — we never invent a figure. Schools use three measurement systems (watts, cubic feet, amps); we store the one the school actually publishes and don’t convert it into a number the school never stated.

3. The four compliance verdicts

Within published limit

The product’s published spec is at or under the school’s published cap, as of the source date.

Over published limit

The published spec exceeds the school’s published cap.

No personal unit allowed

The school provides, requires, or bans the unit — a store-bought one isn’t permitted regardless of spec (about a quarter of schools).

No published cap

The appliance is allowed but the school publishes no numeric cap, so no comparison can be made.

4. What we do not claim

We are not the university and we do not approve appliances. “Within the published limit” is a comparison of published numbers, not a guarantee that a hall will accept a unit — rules change, halls vary, and enforcement differs. We never give electrical or fire-safety advice; we quote the school’s own rule and link the source. This is why our language stays strictly comparative — “within the published limit” — and never asserts approval or promises a hall will accept a unit.

5. Affiliate disclosure

Product links may become affiliate links; if you buy through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That never changes which unit we mark within-limit — compliance is computed from the specs, and an over-limit unit is labeled over-limit even if we’d earn on it.

6. Freshness

Schools reissue year-branded housing policies each summer. We re-verify annually around the move-in window and check pages for silent edits twice a year. Each school page shows the date its rule was last reviewed.