George Washington University Summer Housing

Lots of people have have posted bad reviews and I think it mainly comes to managing expectations.
I have stayed over the summer for two years and tried their lower and higher building tiers.
The major selling point of the housing is its location. You can’t get the location with any other university and that is essentially what you are paying for. If you are used to modern housing I recommend you spring the extra dollar for the nicer options. A lot of people don’t realize the cheaper options are buildings that have been around for close to 100 years. Its also about managing expectations.
The summer housing staff is accessible. They weren’t always able to solve my issues like facilities issues right away but they have someone you can call ²⁴⁄₇ and they are pretty responsive and helpful.

It’s unfortunate that I have to agree with the vast majority of reviewers. Had I perhaps seen the reviews before coming, maybe I would have avoided it, so I hope that I can help someone else.
I currently am residing in Shenkman Hall (formerly Ivory Tower) for this summer of 2015 until August 1^st.
Moving in was fairly easy, despite not being told who my roommates would be and them not knowing that I was even coming. They pretty much give you an access card for the building/​your room and let you go. If you have questions later, just be prepared to either wait a while or get a short, curt response.
Shenkman Hall looked nice enough, definitely worn down and I honestly don’t know how old it is. Lackluster, but it looked livable. When I got to my room, it seemed fine. Stains on the carpets and extremely cold, but again, livable. When my roommate got back for the first time, she told me about how she had to sponge clean the floors because it was such a mess when she moved in (a week before me).
Everything is clearly very old and used, to be honest, I don’t think any of the room (bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms, etc.) was cleaned before they let us move in. However, I was still okay with it at this point.
About a week into living there, my roommate and I found ants. Bad enough as that was, it took maintenance a few days to actually take care of the issue… after my roommate and I had already spent more of our own money on ant traps and spray. Plus my roommate told me she found a cockroach once so bugs are clearly on the list of what to expect here.
Ever wavering air conditioning, spotty wifi, either extremely scalding or freezing water, and washing machines that will eat all your quarters.
Generally, if you’re looking for somewhere to live that is in a fairly convenient location, GWU will do. But I’m sure that the money can be spent somewhere far better. GWU provides a place for me to sleep at night, so I’m thankful for that, but I’m extremely frustrated with all that I have encountered as well as the lack of response. I encourage future summer housing residents to seek out other options if at all possible.

I specifically booked a room in the newest dorm building I could hoping to avoid these issues. I was being overly optimistic.
1) Check in — was relatively smooth but failed to give basic information. If you have a question later (how to get your mail, whether you can use some of the facilities) they snark the answers like it’s your fault you didn’t ask during the 30 seconds during check in.
2) The building (Potomac House) — looks nice until you get to the rooms. The rooms are messy (not a single person I talked to on my floor had their room vacuumed before they moved in) and the furniture was broken. The attached bathrooms are a nice plus but they are incredibly loud. I can’t imagine the mess that would be the kitchens in the buildings that have those.
3) The staff — rude from every turn. Every problem I had got me a snarky response. When my air conditioning stopped working on July 3 it took 4 emails and 2 phone calls to get a response, and when I finally did I was chastised for having a problem on a holiday (apparently July 3 is a holiday? News to my office and the bank I had been in that day). I was also chastised for submitting my request through email (as I had been instructed in the intro paperwork) instead of via a website we had never been informed about and my guest ID didn’t work on. After several more emails I finally got a notification that the whole building was actually having problems and they had been aware all day. Maybe an email to let people know? That’s the second time this exact problem happened.
4) Just general lack of coordination — Was promised by the summer staff that I would be able to get mail, but the mailroom didn’t deliver mail or packages for the first three weeks of the summer. Was promised that the wifi would work, but it drops all the time and randomly blocks websites (like my bank and my home university’s student site).
Put your $ 3000 toward renting a room out in the burbs. GWU is a joke. The good location isn’t worth the headache of the facilities.

This is my first negative review on Unilocal for a reason. I am currently living in GW Housing in Foggy Bottom for summer 2014, and I am absolutely appalled by all the issues I’ve had to endure — the summer isn’t even over yet, but I digress.
I stayed at NYU Housing in Manhattan last summer and had similar expectations for GW, especially since both units were around the same price. It was around $ 3000 to live at GW for an 8-​week period, which is how long my internship lasts so I figured it was the best option. I live in the apartment style dorms with a kitchen and bathroom. But here’s what you need to know:
PROS
1.) An almost unbeatable location. I live at JBKO right next to the Foggy Bottom Metro Station, but I walk to work every day near DuPont. Can’t complain — it’s also great to be right next to a Whole Foods.
… That’s about it.
CONS
1.) The $ 3000 for the summer not only did not include gym access (OK… I guess I can get over that), but it also didn’t include basic cable. Meaning that a subscription is necessary. I brought my TV so that I could watch the news in the morning (not asking for HBO here, just BASIC CHANNELS) and I can’t even do that without paying for it. Don’t understand why I can’t get channels 1 – 3.
2.) My dorm had not had hot water for a solid week and a half, and the residents weren’t even notified about it or told why. It still isn’t consistent.
3.) Construction is to be expected, but not on a Saturday morning at 7 am. I wish I was kidding, but when the building is vibrating and this is one of the only days you get to sleep in, it gets old.
4.) The fan in our very small kitchen does not work, and when my roommate filed a request to have it fixed, no one came to fix it – AND where she filed the request online indicated that it WAS fixed when it wasn’t.
5.) On top of that, I was cooking dinner one night and set off our fire alarm in the room because the fan didn’t work. I opened the door to let the smoke out, and a police officer came to our door to make sure everything was OK — and to tell me NOT to open our door to let the smoke out. Our windows open about half an inch. What else could we have done?
6.) The mailboxes are very difficult to open. You have to use your combination, which seems simple enough, but they’re so jittery and fussy that checking your mail is a hassle.
7.) Packages must be picked up in a separate building, which is fine, but I went a week without receiving the email that stated my package was ready for pick-​up. When I called about it, I was treated like it was my fault I didn’t get the notification they never sent.
8.) When we arrived to move in, the electronic keys weren’t working for the individual rooms. It was very unorganized.
9.) The laundry machines WILL eat your quarters and the buttons won’t work for a few of them after that fact.
For 8 weeks, this is a lot to deal with. I’m miserable. If you’re an intern seeking housing, DON’T choose GW. You can find something else that doesn’t rip you off.

I stayed here in Summer 2012, and after that experience, I would absolutely NOT recommend GW housing to a friend. To be positive, I’ll start with the only two pros I can think of: (1) it’s a really, really great location and (2) practically every summer intern in DC lands here, so there is some feeling of community.
The actual student apartment I got was fairly well-​sized, for a dorm double, and had a decent amount of natural light. But it was kind of dingy, and very grungy — the floors were so dirty that our feet would turn black from just 5 minutes of walking on them! GW supplied us with a mini kitchen and a fridge, which was cool, but the fridge broke half-​way through the summer. The lights in the bathroom went out too, and calling GW maintenance to fix both issues was a giant hassle. Also, the wifi sucked and was super spotty. Their laundry machines ate my quarters.
As a previous reviewer said, GW does not care about summer residents; actually, GW seems to be actively trying to screw summer residents over. This was epitomized by their promise of gym membership (included in the cost of staying for the summer), which was one of the reasons I signed up for GW housing in the first place. This was in writing on their website, but when I checked in on the first day, I was informed that I would have to pay for $ 300 for gym access for the summer. I tried to contact the higher-​ups in their summer resident program to complain about this, but they refused to return my calls /​emails. Ridiculous.

Three words to sum up the apartments in GWU:
Loud, old, and disgusting.

I would have to agree with the other reviewers. This is from my experience as being from the Summer of 2011.
On the first day of my visit, they just handed me the keys and said if you need anything, here is the number. I walk into my room and already, the air conditioning was broken. Did they not check it before allowing incoming residents in?
Throughout the ten weeks I was there, the internet stopped working numerous times. Summer residents could only use the Wifi for Summer residents, not for GWU students.
They never notified me before signing the summer agreement of all the construction. It can literally serve as an alarm clock.
Moreover, GWU held many «bloc» parties for orientation students until the early hours in the morning. It was loud and prevented most of the residents in my hall (Crawford) from being able to sleep. The GWU staff did not care at all for all the interns who had to get up early in the morning.
The only reason why it isn’t one star is because of the location. Within fifteen minutes I could get from GWU (Foggy Bottom) to the House of Representatives at Congress (Capitol South). They definitely overprice for what you get being a summer resident here. I would suggest trying other places before considering staying here.

George Washington University Summer Housing is a miserable and overpriced excuse for intern housing. My friend and I booked a room at the West End which was in their second tier of accommodations (they have three tiers) for $ 2900 each for 8 weeks. The room was in filthy condition with rust everywhere and paint peeling off the wall. The appliances were not working and the windows overlooked an alley with two large dumpsters.
Realizing that this was no way to spend a summer, we paid an additional (discounted) rate of $ 135 each to upgrade to City Hall which is their top tier housing which they assured me was «luxurious». For the first four weeks, the air conditioning did not work. There were five instances where we were woken up in the middle of the night (between 1am and 4am) by the malfunctioning fire alarm and forced to evacuate. Throughout my stay, only one of three elevators was regularly operating. While many folks in the housing office were nice and even somewhat sympathetic to our concerns, they were unwilling to offer any sort of refund other than $ 75 for our troubles (remember that we were paying over $ 3000 each).
I will say that the location is quite good (only a 10 minute metro ride from Capitol Hill and walking distance from the White House and Georgetown). Nonetheless, I would say that GWU housing is worth about 50% of what they charge at the moment. We were paying on average $ 3000 a month for a cramped apartment with malfunctioning air conditioning and fire alarm systems. The fact is, you’d do much better looking at non-​student centered housing in DC as you will find higher quality accommodations for a lower price.