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Would it be possible for me to find a one-person apartment for just the summer of freshman year of college as a 19 year-old? I don't currently have a job. I imagine I will need that beforehand (I do plan on getting one asap). What do I need to do to qualify?
Are you talking about the summer after you finish your first year? In-between staying in student housing?
If so, it would probably be easier to negotiate paying the college to stay through the summer. It's pricey, but it would be a safer bet than trying to find a landlord to just rent to you through the summer.
Your second best bet would be to sublet another student's apartment through the summer. A student who already has an apt off-campus who wants to keep their apartment, but go home for the summer. For those kinds of rentals, your best bet is to look on your college's website or facebook page for their off-campus housing, or bulletin boards where students list summer sublets. You could also post your own ad saying you are looking for a summer sublet.
If you are talking about the summer before you start your first year, and you don't have access to your college's off-campus listings yet (some colleges require you to be a current student before you can get access to their listings online), then you could post an ad on Craigslist, saying you are looking for a summer sublet.
If you do the Craigslist thing, if I were you, I'd ask to see their student ID's to make sure they're for real. Just be careful and take someone with you when you go check it out.
Most landlords won't rent for a short term like the summer. I used to rent apts to students in Santa Clara, CA, and occasionally I would rent to a student for the summer, if I had a student lined up for the fall. This was rare, but I did it occasionally. For students who could prove to me they were full-time students, I would run a credit check, but allow them to move in without proving their own income. If they had student loans, I would take that as proof of income. I did this because the students who went to the private university across the street had to have money to go to that school, so I never worried about the rent, and I was never burned.
That said, I was not a typical landlord. But, landlords in college towns will usually accept your parents as co-signers.
The short version to your question is that it would be hard to rent an apartment in your name for just the summer, as landlords are looking for longer term commitments than that.
Your best bet is looking for a sublet - where a student is looking for someone to pay their rent for the summer. Then you also won't have to look for furniture, etc. I let my student tenants sublet their apartments for the summer, as long as they found someone compatible for the building (quiet, and responsible).
There are landlords who specialize in student tenants. If it is near a college, they are around there.
You would have to show where the money is coming from to pay the rent. As a freshman, you probably would have to have a parent cosigner. It might be that a freshman would have to pay a pretty hefty security deposit. Freshman, first summer away from home, maybe no classes equals party party party. That means damage.
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