Bring this on every tour. The leasing team answers these questions all day; the families who ask them are the ones who don't get surprised later. Check items off as you go, or print it and put it on a clipboard.
Print this checklist →Families sometimes read "we can only show the model" as evasive. It usually isn't. By tour season, most units have at least one resident living in them, a few are down for repairs or being used for storage, and the vacant ones often haven't been cleaned since the last resident left. There is rarely a spotless empty unit sitting around to walk through, so the polished model is what the team can realistically show you.
"Any chance we can walk the same floor plan my student would get, or see the view from their actual floor?" Expect a no, but ask anyway. When a yes is possible, it goes to the families who asked.
Want to see lived-in reality? Look at the photos residents post in Google reviews and on the campus subreddit: real bedrooms, real views, real move-in condition.
Review photos skew negative; people mostly post their worst day. Use them to spot repeated patterns, not to judge by one horror shot.
Got quotes from the tour? Run them through the true-cost calculator, then put your finalists side by side on the comparison worksheet.
Open the calculator →