Incoming Students

Students will submit their six seminars of interest via the Montserrat Course Preference form by June 13, 2025. Students are encouraged to read the seminar descriptions in full.

The Registrar will release schedules no later than July 8, 2025. Your schedule will include your Montserrat seminar and one additional course from your preference list.

First-year academic advisors are assigned in late summer. Students' first-year academic advisor will reach out to meet with them in the first week of classes. In addition, students will have the opportunity in June to have an online advising appointment with a faculty member to discuss course enrollment for their fall classes, which will take place this summer. Students can email their class dean at classdean2029@holycross.edu with additional course questions. 

Residential students will automatically receive the Standard Food Plan which is Unlimited meals in Kimball dining hall, $450 dining dollars per semester and 8 meal swipes per week at participating retail locations. Apartment students will automatically receive an Apartment Food plan that gives you dining dollars on your One Card. You have the ability to choose from 3 Apartment Food Plan options that include meal swipes at Kimball dining hall or you can choose the Residential Standard Food Plan. View all available Food Plans on our Dining website, or contact Willow Davey with questions.

Students with food allergies should visit our Dining website to learn more about our approach to nutrition and food allergies. For more information or questions, please contact Brad Shannon, Director of Culinary Development & Nutrition.

Students with documented food allergies and conditions whose medical needs cannot be met within the structure of Dining Services may request accommodations through the Office of Student Accessibility Services. Students must provide relevant documentation and participate in an interactive process with Student Accessibility Services to determine eligibility for accommodations. 

Student Accounts handles the charging and collection of various fees including tuition, housing, food plans, health insurance and other fees to the student account. They also apply financial aid and payments to the student account.

For additional questions, contact Student Accounts (8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST) at (508) 793-2521 or email bursar@holyross.edu.

For questions regarding financial aid forms or packages, contact the Financial Aid Office. Questions regarding tuition and bills should be directed to Student Accounts.

Required medical forms for incoming students and student-athletes, and how to upload them, can be found on the Health Services website. Forms are due on Monday, August 11, 2025, or 1 week prior to students arrival on campus, whichever comes earliest. 

Roommates are assigned based on Montserrat cluster assignment. We use the roommate matching questionnaire to match and place students into the first-year halls. When students participate in the Housing Selection Process for their sophomore, junior and senior years, they do indeed get to select their roommate, hall and room they will live in as an upperclass student.

Move-in for the Class of 2029 is Wednesday, August 20, 2025. Move-in for transfer students will be Thursday, August 21, 2025.

Move-in day is generally between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. View the full move-in day schedule. Students and their families come to campus and are directed to their building that will be their fall assignment in order to move in their belongings. Once at the building, we have a large group of student volunteers to assist in moving the students' belongings to their assigned room and welcoming them. Students will need to complete some additional tasks, including: verifying health forms and picking up their student ID. There will be some programming on campus for families, including Mass of the Holy Spirit. Families are asked to depart campus by 5 p.m. so students can begin their fall orientation program. 

Students will receive notification that their Holy Cross gmail account has been set-up in mid-May. If students believe they have not received it, they should check their spam folder. If they still cannot find it, email helpdesk-request@holycross.edu, and ITS can issue a new activation email. Review instructions for setting up student email accounts.

The College does not provide or sell computers. We recommend a computer that is using at least Windows 11 or Mac OS within the last 3 versions (currently v15 Sonoma.) Learn more about Getting Connected.

Parents/Guardians can update their contact information (email, phone, mailing address) using the Family Information Form. Please note that the student will still need to submit their parents’/guardian’s contact information updates in STAR for emergency contact and/or authorized users (receiving access to view grades and bills in the Parent Portal) as applicable due to student privacy guidelines outlined in The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). 

• There are two systems (Parent Portal; TouchNet Bill +Payment) that exist for parents/guardians/authorized users to be able to access some student information.
• Students control who have access to these systems and what information they may view. Under FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act), a student’s account is private unless they grant access to it. A student can grant access to others by creating an authorized user account. Students are encouraged to grant access to their parents/guardians.
• Your student will receive an email with instructions to set up their network account in late May, to the email used to apply to Holy Cross. Once they set up this account, they can access the Student Academic Record system (STAR) and create authorized users. Please note, there are two portals (Parent Portal; TouchNet Bill +Payment) with different functions.
• For billing and payment purposes, students can grant access to an authorized user to their TouchNet Bill + Payment system by following the instructions on video 2 here.

The Office of Parent and Family Engagement will be working with parents/guardians/support people throughout the summer to assist in onboarding them to the Holy Cross community and helping them navigate how to support their student during the transition to college. The office will send bi-weekly emails highlighting key resources, approaching deadlines, and conversation ideas. Additionally, there will be several webinars offered during the summer as part of the From The Hill to You series. Finally, we look forward to meeting and connecting with you in person on move-in day. 

Mass of the Holy Spirit

Mass of the Holy Spirit will be offered on Move-In Day on August 20 at 4 p.m. New students and families are formally welcomed to start the new academic year. People of all faith traditions and beliefs are welcome at this Mass.

Family Weekend 

Save the Date for this year's Family Weekend: October 31 - November 2! The detailed schedule for Fall 2025 will be available in late summer, but you can review the 2024 schedule to get a better sense of the programming that will be offered and what to expect.  

When students access STAR, they will be asked to enter emergency contact information. Please touch base with your student to ensure that information is accurate.

The Office of Student Accessibility Services provides accommodations to qualifying students, including academic, housing, dining, transportation and parking, and temporary accommodations.

All first-year students requesting disability accommodations  are encouraged to submit accommodation requests to the Accommodate portal with appropriate documentation from a medical provider.  Please see our website documentation and process guidelines.

If you are a student with a disability and would like to apply for housing accommodation(s), the deadline to formally request housing accommodations is June 20, 2025.  If you do not meet this deadline (request submitted to Accommodate and complete documentation), submitted housing requests that are received after this date and approved may not be able to be granted for the 2025-2026 academic year, since the availability for certain types of housing accommodations may be limited post-deadlines. 

Even if you are not sure that you will require all previously received accommodations, it is recommended that you contact the Office of Student Accessibility Services to determine eligibility. .  Approved accommodations are not retroactive and all complete accommodations requests can take up to two weeks (dependent on time of year) to process.  Note: specific approved accommodations may be different from high school in comparison to college.

Traditionally all first-year students are required to work in Hospitality. A first-year student can work in Hospitality and hold another position on campus. Student employees who need to request an exemption from the policy to work in Hospitality on the basis of a disability or qualifying medical condition or a sincerely held religious belief should contact the Office of Accessibility Services and Human Resources. 

The College is required to verify that all employees hired are legally entitled to work in the United States. All new student employees must complete a Form I-9 and provide the necessary documentation, specified on the Form I-9, to establish identity and employment eligibility to Human Resources for verification. Review the list of acceptable identification documents.

The I9 process has two basic steps: 

• Filling out the I-9 form online in HR Self-Service
• Bringing original, unexpired documents to HR to verify the I9 (Photocopies will NOT be accepted per federal law). 

Students cannot begin working until they have completed the full I-9 process with the Office of Human Resources. 

Yes, a first-year student can work on campus if they do not have federal work-study.

No. Federal Work-Study is an opportunity for students to work in order to earn money to pay for college expenses, as well as to gain valuable employment experience. It is one component of an aid package that may be composed of loan, scholarship/grant, or work awards. A student may choose to decline the work offer. However, if a student does not work their eligibility for future work-study aid may be impacted.

Yes! Students are paid at the rate of $15.50 per hour for hours worked on a bi-weekly basis. Students will be required to sign up for Direct Deposit.

Depending on the Hospitality location you choose, most students work a minimum of 4-6 weekly hours and are not to exceed a total of 20 hours per week.