The campus is in Écublens, not central Lausanne — the M1 metro is the deciding factor for most students. Renens and Chavannes are a shorter commute than the city centre.
We run student housing here, so these are the numbers we see in our own applications rather than an average scraped off a portal. Rooms in Écublens and Renens near EPFL clear fastest; Prilly and Malley are cheaper and about fifteen minutes further out.
Apply to FMEL the day you are admitted — the list runs 6 to 9 months, so it rarely helps for your first semester, but it costs nothing and it helps for your second. Everything else means the private market.
File your residence permit dossier about three months before you arrive; processing runs eight to twelve weeks and nothing downstream starts until it is in. Register at your commune within fourteen days of landing, and sort health insurance within three months. The full timeline.
Campus is at Écublens. Choose your neighbourhood by commute rather than by postcode — a cheaper room forty minutes away costs you two hours a day for a year.
Most EPFL applicants get stuck on the same thing: an agency that wants someone resident in Switzerland to co-sign. We do that, for 3 months' rent — after we have read your file, and we do decline some.