It will be okay. There are more vacant apartments in June than in July, but at this point two weeks won't kill you, particularly if you aren't all that picky about closet space, the Holy Grail of apartment hunting in Wauwatosa. Stop by the campus and drop by the Student Affairs office on a weekday. They have a book of landlords who advertise there, and some ONLY advertise there. There's also a freestanding bulletin board near the cafeteria with flyers on it. You can also look in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ads online (
http://www2.jsonline.com/rentals/) to get some ideas, but a lot of people don't spend the money to advertise there. Driving around the neighborhood to look at for rent signs is how I found most of the apartments I looked at. Be sure to get a map, because some of the 'Tosa streets are pretty weird and it's good to figure out how you wound up on Plank Road AGAIN.
Okay, some checklist things:
- Get map of Milwaukee or Wauwatosa specifically (Tosa is on most Milwaukee maps; it's an adjacent town). If you have a AAA membership, you can get one free.
- Request your transcripts NOW. They are due August 1. Be sure to call the school after a couple of weeks and make sure they got there! Two of mine didn't and I had to re-send.
- Read the part of this thread about lenders and call financial aid if you need help selecting a lender.
- Get out here and pick an apartment.
- Get utilities set up. For broadband internet, you can do a cable modem from Time Warner, or DSL from the phone company. If you want to have a landline anyway, DSL is cheaper.
- Figure out how you'll get your stuff here.
- Celebrate. You got into med school! This moving stuff is a cakewalk compared to the MCAT.
Anybody else have stuff to add?