When I was in college many decades ago, NONE of my profs, most of whom were PhD's, had ANY real world experience in their areas of "expertise" and I know for a fact that my school was not unusual in that regard.

That being said, I am aware of the type of policy he is using (because we use some similiar programs) and it is not unusual for the banking industry.

That would be really unusual. 

Laws vary greatly from state to state, but it would be highly unusual to get reimbursed for "any rehab done" to a tax sale property if the previous owner successfully challenged the sale.  

Is this unusual or am I just overthinking the situation?

It is not unusual that tenants will severely damage rental property they are about to be evicted from because, well, they have nothing to lose by doing so.As suggested, bring locks and lots of garbage bags. 

From my experience, most people are not looking for a place to move into in 4-6 weeks, they're looking to move in a couple of weeks or less so be glad you have plenty of time to find your perfect tenant.I would echo the advice already stated that you should definitely have an application fee of $25-$30 per adult and let your potential applicants know up front and stated clearly what the requirements are before they even come look at it to save yourself and them a lot of wasted time.There are a lot of low quality tenants out there and they have a hard time finding a place to live so it's not unusual to get a lot of low quality inquiries.  

It's not unusual to 4-7 days

I don't have a college degree which feels unusual for someone my age.

However, some stores with unusual footprints can take a lot of time to find a new owner/renter.