About

An independent, unofficial guide

GraduationStay is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of any university. We publish verified lodging logistics for graduation weekends because no one else does — every result that currently ranks for these questions is either a hotel telling you to book itself, an OTA's generic city page, or a university parent hub. None of them can honestly tell you to book a rival, a ring town, or a rental.

How we verify logistics

Every rate, minimum-stay rule, cancellation deadline, and ceremony date on this site is checked against a primary source: the university's own registrar or commencement office for dates and venues, and each hotel's own policy page for rates, minimums, prepayment, and cancellation terms. We do not republish unverified claims from forums or news coverage — those are useful as leads, never as facts. Anything we can't verify is left out, not guessed. Every page carries a dated "Last verified" line, and we re-check each covered campus at least once a year, roughly eight months ahead of its May ceremony, plus a January sweep for deposit-forfeit deadlines.

How we grade booking pressure

Every campus carries a booking-pressure badge, graded against fixed criteria rather than a gut feeling — we'd rather have most campuses land on the same tier honestly than manufacture variety:

• Extreme — at least one epicenter property is independently confirmed fully sold out or waitlisted for the target commencement year, or a rental/hotel publishes an exact booking-window deadline (a specific date and time) rather than general guidance to book early.
• High — real, sourced booking pressure (published minimum-stay and prepayment rules, university guidance to book far in advance, or a fixed cancellation deadline) but no named property is yet confirmed fully sold out for the target year.
• Elevated — a genuine college-town squeeze during commencement weekend, without dated hotel-level scarcity evidence yet. Not currently used by any campus in this launch portfolio; we'll apply it honestly as lower-pressure campuses are added.

How review synthesis works

Where you see a "What families' reviews show" section, it's a pattern-level analysis across publicly posted reviews on booking platforms — never a copied review, never an invented one. We only publish this synthesis once we've actually read enough reviews to identify a real, repeated pattern; pages without enough evidence simply don't have this section yet.

How we make money

GraduationStay earns commission through Stay22 when you book through the maps on this site, at no extra cost to you. Because many epicenter hotels handle graduation-weekend bookings directly — by phone, mail-in form, or lottery — rather than through OTAs, that commission is often earned on the ring-town and rental bookings we point you toward once the epicenter is full, not on the epicenter listings themselves. This never changes what we recommend: our job is to tell you where the actual availability is, whether or not it happens to be commissionable.

We also offer paid partner listings through Get Listed to businesses and individuals near a specific campus. Paid listings are always labelled as partner content, marked rel="sponsored", and kept visually and editorially separate from our recommendations. A paid listing never influences which hotels, towns, or rentals we recommend.

Corrections and questions

Found something out of date, or run a graduation-weekend business near a covered campus? Emailhello@graduationstay.com.