Quick answer: Start four weeks out. Decide what comes home, what gets stored, and what leaves the room entirely. Book storage or a shipping slot three weeks out, because prices climb and slots sell out. Clean before the room inspection, not after, and photograph everything before you hand back the key.
Move-out is a deadline with a fine attached. Most schools require the room emptied within 24 hours of the last exam, charge for anything left behind, and bill for cleaning and damage after you have already driven away. The students who get through it cheaply are the ones who started before finals.
Four weeks out: decide
Sort everything into four piles before you touch a box. Doing this while you still have time is what makes the rest of move-out cheap.
Comes home
- Clothes for the season ahead
- Electronics and anything valuable
- Documents, medication, keys
- Bedding worth keeping
Gets stored
- Fridge, microwave, fan
- Storage bins and drawers
- Off-season clothes
- Anything you would buy again in August
Leaves the room
- Anything broken or stained
- Half-used cleaning supplies
- Textbooks with no resale value
- Decor you are already tired of
Three weeks out: book it
- Summer storage. Campus-area units and student storage services fill up and raise prices as finals approach. A shared unit split between roommates is almost always cheaper than shipping.
- Shipping. If home is a flight away, compare ground shipping a few boxes against paying for checked bags. Ground is usually cheaper and slower, which is fine in May.
- The car. If someone is driving up, confirm the date and what will actually fit. A sedan holds far less than a semester's worth of dorm.
- Next year's housing. If you are moving into an apartment, the move-out and move-in dates rarely line up, which is exactly why the storage decision comes first.
Two weeks out: sell and donate
The market for used dorm gear is best right before everyone leaves and worthless the day after. Campus buy-sell groups, hall lounges and local donation drives all clear faster in the second-to-last week.
- Mini fridges and microwaves hold value better than anything else. Sell them clean.
- Textbooks: compare the campus buyback against online buyers before accepting either.
- Unopened food, unused toiletries and cleaning supplies go to a campus donation drive if there is one.
- Furniture nobody wants gets left, and left furniture is what generates removal charges. Plan its exit.
Move-out week: pack, clean, document
What gets students charged
- Items left in the room. Billed as removal, usually at a flat rate per item.
- Trash left in the hallway. Halls have designated dumpsters and a window for using them.
- Adhesive and tape damage. Paint pulled off a wall is a painting charge.
- Missing furniture. If you moved a drawer unit to a lounge, move it back.
- Not checking out properly. Some halls require a key return and a signed form. Missing either generates a lock-change fee.
Summer storage without wasting money
- Split a unit with roommates and agree in writing who picks it up in August.
- Store the appliances, not the linens. Bedding is bulky, cheap to replace, and comes out smelling like a unit.
- Take a photo of everything going in. In August nobody remembers what they stored.
- Check whether the unit is climate controlled if anything electronic is going in it.
- Compare a full summer of storage against the cost of just rebuying the item. Sometimes storage loses.
The move-out list is the move-in list in reverse. If you tracked what came into the room in August, you already know what has to leave in May, who it belongs to, and what is worth keeping for next year.
Run move-out from the same list you packed with.
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