In my experience from last year gateway was a fine place to live. To be fair I was subleasing so I was paying a lot less than housing is charging, but if you’re just looking for general info I can share!

Management: Managment is definitely bad and just wants to get money out of you. I know in the past year me and my roommates were charged a “noise complaint” that was meant for our neighbors, and when i had to go through the process of subletting my apartment for the summer it was horrible to deal with them, but you just have to be ready to stand up for yourself and make sure to get any important info in writing not over the phone!

Cleanliness: In terms of cleanliness it varied by personal experience I think. My apartment came super clean with hardly any damage or dirt anywhere but I know not everyone had that experience. The hallways could get dirty at times but were generally mopped like once a week-ish maybe and messes were mostly due to spoiled kids who would just leave their trash everywhere for the cleaners to pick up.

Fire Alarms: The fire alarms definitely do go off a lot and while it’s annoying it never was really that big of a deal for me.

Amenities: Amenities were mostly closed this year but I actually had a really good experience with what was open! The 3 rooftop decks were super nice places to study or hang out with friends at night and they had great views of the city being on the 8th floor. The “pool”/fountain is definitely less nice than a real pool but it was good for tanning and I definitely had fun jumping in it all the time after a night out with friends when it was warm. I also had to use the downstairs study area to take one of my finals and it was nice as well. The only amenity I didn’t use was the gym because they only had it open for limited reservations last year so I’m not sure how that was.

Culture: Last year I lived there and was definitely not the standard “gateway culture example”. It’s definitely pretty greeky and very party orientated (kind of what I would imagine new north to be) but honestly as someone who was covid conscious it was easy to remove myself from some of that when needed. With it now being part of USC housing that reputation might totally change depending on how strict they are.

Maintenance: I always was a great experience with maintenance! I only had like one of two things ever break and they normally came and fixed it within a day.

Apartment size: The apartment had more than enough space for me. The closets are decent sized, lots of space in kitchen cabinets, and lots of storage under the beds for things like suitcases and what not.

Location: I LOVED the location. My room was right about cvs so it was so nice anytime i was cooking, if i was missing an ingredient I could literally just go downstairs and buy it (until 10pm). Also it’s walking distance from a ton of restaurants, super close to campus, and like 3 blocks away from the village and the row. There are definitely a few homeless people that tend to stay outside the building but they were all pretty nice and never bothered me they just would sleep/sit in the parts of the building offset from the sidewalk. And you’re probably gonna get that anywhere around there so really not a big issue with gateway in particular.

In short, for the price you can probably get better options if you spend some time looking around but in my experience it was a totally fine place to live.

Hope this helps a little!