Collegetown Terrace

My apartment is great: really cute building, well-maintained, nice people that work in the management office, and great perks like a shuttle to school on the weekdays and a shuttle to Wegmans on the weekends. It is way more than I thought I would pay when moving to Ithaca but you get what you pay for, especially in terms of repairs and amenities. Whenever something breaks, they send someone that day to take a look, and the gym and the shuttle are really wonderful.

CTT has a lot of the amenities of a large dorm without being in a dorm: study rooms, internet, gym, and your classmates—all without leaving the building. I chose it, because it is secure, it provides a shuttle to campus every morning, it has a gym, and it is one of few apartment complexes with covered parking, which is necessary following Ithaca snow storms and makes it easy for people to visit you (parking at Maplewood could risk getting your car towed, and finding parking in the Commons can be annoying or you may need to pay for it). If you have roommates, you may like the fact that it has a 1:1 bathroom to bedroom, meaning you won’t have to share your bathroom with your roommate(s). The leasing office is responsive, making it easy to get in touch with them about any concerns you may have. The outages with the internet is sometimes inconvenient, but it’s never been problematic whenever I needed to get something completed in a short notice.

CTT is a good overall choice. It is one the pricey side but there are nice amenities. It is located between campus and the Commons so it is accessible to a lot of student and night lift and to Ithaca. The buildings are new. The shuttle is great when you need to bring a change of clothes or the weather is bad. The covered parking is great in the winter with the snow/ice.

There were several times that I had to call the leasing office to fix the problem. I also realized that this is pretty expensive price compared to the other housing options.

Overall is very pleasant. The location is convenient. The free shuttle make it easier to go to school and grocery shopping on weekends. There is plenty of covered parking if you drive, but it costs about a thousand dollars a year to park. Gym is also very well equipped, and we'll maintained.

Only downfall is the Internet often breaks down, which is not helpful when you are trying to submit a paper online. It could also gets a bit noisy because of the centrallized heating and cooling pipe runs the entire apartment complex.

I strongly advise that you look for somewhere else to live besides Collegetown Terrace Apartments (CTT).
There are several reasons I strongly feel this way, and throughout my graduate experience in Ithaca all my classmates agree. Below is not even a comprehensive list.
1. Inflexible lease period: Students mostly need to just have housing throughout the school semester (Aug-May) but CTT does not tolerate that at all. Other housing allows this 10 month lease, which should be the norm. CTT makes you lease for a year and you're stuck with paying for extra rent over the summer when you're not even living there, or you're on your own to look for someone to sublease your apartment but of course, you're at a loss because nobody is willing to sublease your apartment at the regular price given the competition. Also, you have to sign several documents and finding someone to sublet is a hassle. You'll have to worry about extra work.
2. Management's attitude is horrible: Their hunger for making money off of students is very visible and they're only nice to you when they are trying to make you sign. After you have signed, their attitude and even expressions change and they are unresponsive to students' requests. I've worked in large corporations and I've seen many different kinds of people but the employees there all have a horrible attitude and frankly speaking, you can tell they are not great human beings in general.
3. Walls are really thin: Self-explanatory. It's extremely uncomfortable when it's that time your neighbor's significant other comes to visit. You can hear everything.
4. Cutting internal costs (like important internet) but trying to cover it up with showy dinners and things that don't really matter: Internet has been a huge issue and we all know they have just downgraded to a cheaper and slower internet option. They never admit it and when my classmates have complained about it, they sent in the Spectrum crew but the issue wasn't resolved after that (probably because they're using the cheapest option?). Externally, they try to make it seem like they are providing perks of living there, like an end of semester buffet or desserts. But usually that runs out really fast (even before the start time) and the replacement is just plain old pizza.
5. Poor quality building: True story - my friend's ceiling got a huge hole when it snowed. Apparently, her room was right below the roof and the weight of the snow caused a hole. I hope that gives you an idea of the quality of the roof/ceiling. It was 3am and my friend had to sleep through that. Afterwards, she complained to the office but they just made it sound like it was her problem and blamed her for "threatening them." They don't care about people's safety and my friend was stuck living there because there were no alternatives given to her from the office.

I could go on but I won't and hope you make the right choice. There are really good housing apartments besides CTT. Strongly recommend those.

The apartment itself is clean and spacious, with a great kitchen, central AC/Heat and a Washer/Dryer in-unit. The location is walking distance to campus, although it's a bit of a hike on the way up the hill. The shuttle service, which departs right outside of my building every 10 mins in the AM, is

CTT advertises as having internet and cable included in your rent, however cable is not actually included. You have to pay extra for a cable plan and then get it installed. The internet speed is horrible, and most nights it actually stops working completely. When you complain to the building, they say there is nothing that they can do to help and direct you to speak with their IT person, however it is the building managements responsibility to fix this.
Also, the buildings are on the side of a mountain so not all floors are accessible from all elevators and entry ways. It's extremely confusing to get around, hard to get food delivered, and there is no signage to help direct people. The walls in a 2 bedroom apartment are so thin that you can hear every word of your roommates conversation, noises from other apartments and even alarms going off in other rooms. Homeless people also pick through the trash in the garages so it is not as safe as some other buildings in the area.

Location is very convenient- close to both downtown and Cornell's campus. The shuttle is a really quick way to get to campus in the mornings. One consistent issue is the internet- it is included in the rent but is often slow or cuts in and out.

Collegetown Terrace (CTT) is an amazing apartment. My building is clean, quiet, and spacious. The management is very friendly and always available for questions. The bus to campus is an amazing feature of living here. My favorite aspect of living at CTT is that I can pay my rent using a credit card, which most places do not allow.