Nope. You pay after you see the apartment. You never, under any circumstances, pay before.

If a landlord charges you an application fee, especially if it is an exorbitant price, it is a scam. Do not fall for it. Chances are, the apartment is dogshit (mold, cracks, etc.) and the landlord is one of those bad-apple business owners who thirst for money as badly as human beings thirst for water.

Landlords will claim "criminal history" or something like that that the fee is put towards, but Google is literally free to use. All you have to do is punch in the prospective tenant's name and voila. Bonus points if they have Facebook; makes the job much easier. It's not entirely foolproof--we've ended up with bad apples who seemed good at first but showed their true colors after a while--but it works.