As your student is busily preparing for finals, he or she is planning for tests, papers, lab reports and the like.  For obvious reasons, preparing for moving out of their residence hall is not high on their list of priorities. 

Just like move-in during the fall, move-out requires planning and preparation. Maybe you can assist your student in doing some of the planning now, before the crush of finals hits, to make the first weekend in May easier for everyone!

Here are a few suggestions from Residence Life to help make this process as smooth as possible for you and your student:

Familiarize yourself and your student with the housing deadlines and timelines. These can be found at www.housing.gatech.edu - click on Spring 2014 Checkout Information.

• For students not living on-campus during summer semester, the check-out deadline is 24 hours after their last final exam. This may likely be before the weekend, and we ask you abide by that deadline if at all possible. It makes everything else go smoothly if everyone doesn’t try to move out at once on Saturday.  The final deadline for a student to be completely moved out - room cleaned and returned as it was found in August or when student moved in - and checked out by staff is Saturday, May 3, at noon.
•  For students who are graduating in May, he or she must be totally moved and checked out by staff by Sunday, May 4 at noon.
• For students staying for summer school: if he or she is staying in the same room occupied during spring semester, there is nothing that needs to be done - so you can relax! If your student is moving to another hall for summer, she or he will need to do so on Sunday, May 4, between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. These students will receive correspondence from their hall director if the room will be ready as early as 9:00 a.m.
•  Housing cannot extend these deadlines since our student staff (RAs and PLs) will be going home as well. We cannot allow students to stay in an unstaffed building.

Students should pack prior to final exams. Students do not prepare or pack during finals - so we all need to encourage them to do so BEFORE final exams start. Plus, it provides a good and productive study break. Students should take out their recycling, throw away rubbish, organize their belongings, get boxes and packing tape, etc. If students wait until they have completed their exams, they simply will not have enough time to do all of this!

Send stuff home now. Why wait? If you and your student can arrange to take a couple of loads home before the move out period, it will be easier for everyone.

Plan ahead and think about storage/shipping options. Georgia Tech cannot provide any storage on campus for the summer. The Spring 2014 Checkout Information describes nearby storage facilities, as well as two services you may find useful - Mobile Storage Depot (containers brought to campus, student fills them, stored locally and returned to student’s hall for Fall move-in) and Campus Carriers (delivers storage boxes and supplies, student packs, Campus Carriers picks up and stores boxes for summer – returns to wherever student is living next fall). The Department of Housing endorses both companies as each works well with our students and campus policies. Check them out!

For more information, visit our website www.housing.gatech.edu.