Thread 29 - Covid Cohort - Whirlwinds and Waiting

[OrangeCinnamonCroissant]

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting. It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, please don't within this thread. Please also be sensitive when responding to threads about grades.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue.

Our DS/DD may go down various paths (such as employment, apprenticeships, higher ed) We have decided for anyone interested they will most likely find us within the Further Ed board.

previous thread 28

I'm under the impression that the cheaper accommodation goes first. I've been looking at the Bristol options and they grade the rooms. The 'basic' room - omg is basic! And I assume that they put the better ones as their photos!! And even those with a shared bathroom are nearly £5000

Sorry to hear about DD’s mock @PaddingtonPaddington Dd had a similar experience in her year 10 exams. I hope it doesn’t affect your DD’s feelings about the real exams.

All accommodation at Nottingham is over £5k I believe. Partly because it’s either a 44 week contract or it’s a shorter one but you’re paying for food. Apart from having to pack up your stuff every holiday, the 31 week catered stuff is actually reasonable value at £6300 when you consider it includes 19 meals a week! But dd isn’t convinced.

@singingstones

Welcome Harriet, to the business end of Y13 What's your DD hoping to study?

Thanks all! DD is hoping to study MFL.

The most expensive accommodation at Birmingham seems very popular.

@crazycrofter where does your DD want to stay? my DD loves the idea of not having to think about sorting food but also wants to be right on campus in the middle of things so has to be catered (although some of the self catered is only across the road). I've read lots about how social the catered is too which I think will be good for DD as she may not actually like anyone if only 6 room mates ;-)

Sorry to hear about Dd mock experience @PaddingtonPaddington. Is the school being helpful?

I wanted Dd to consider some Unis further away but the accommodation costs were still prohibitive. I really think.she got put off by some of them because of it. Notts with the catering especially. It's a shame really. Same with London Unis, although arguably with most London Unis you get a completely different experience.

Cardiff seemed to have a 'cap' as it were of just over 5500 for en suite. I wondered if this was to do with their different funding?

A lot of current students want en suite, some are worried about cost, which one is squeezed more depends on which is in short supply. For non campus universities it is worth looking at the private stuff, the weekly rates can be cheaper, but the contracts are longer. I find it more helpful to think about the annual cost than the weekly cost. I was shocked when DS1 started that over £6k pa was normal, but have got used to it now! I think that in general shared bathroom accom is £4.5-£5.5k and en suite £5.5-£7k. Catering adds around £2k. I think it is MUCH more variable when they move into private accommodation.

Welcome @HarrietDVane (massive Wimsey fan here too!)
We finally got ds's student finance form in here, although need to dig out the dyslexia diagnosis from Y5 in order to get his DSA in.

Still waiting back for both Warwick and Bath...

The accommodation costs really are eye watering. IN some ways I'm tempted to steer ds towards catered - I think that he's going to find co-ordinating and organising everything so hard - but yikes, the cost!

For those that self cater - how much do they usuall actually spend on food weekly? obviously everyone will be different but £50? I know they can do it cheaper but do they? or do they end up eating out more often as well as cooking themselves?

@Heifer my DS reckons he spends about £25 a week. He has a big Lidl store within walking distance which really helps. I don't know how much extra he spends on takeaways/eating out on top of that. I know it isn't as much as last year when Uber eats took a bashing during all the lockdowns! Then there is drink on top of that... He is at UWE, so nights out are at Bristol prices.

I haven’t asked DD recently but think she is about £25 a week with increased cost of food but has an Aldi locally now which helps. Don’t think she gets many takeaways. She is great at cooking and eats really well, love it when she cooks for us.

DS is sent with breakfast and lunches each week but recently has been bringing a bit of food back as has been buying lunches out each day as too busy to take pack lunches . He has worked out where and when yellow stickers go out in local supermarkets and is used to cooking for big groups so I am happy if he decides to self cater but haven’t had the conversation yet.

Cost of food & other stuff from supermarket ( cleaning stuff) DS1 £35 ate well with one shared takeaway per week with housemates last year.

DS2 £15 in first year - bought nasty cheap food 23p pasties etc and salty dry noodles with flavour sachets - no fruit snd veg than OJ and beans and spent rest on going out and got sick ….mmm

@Heifer I usually send my DS back at the start of term with massive packs of rice and pasta. His Christmas 'stocking' usually has jars of pasta sauce, or fancy tins, or more expensive treats etc, and I usually do a bulk on line order of toiletries over the summer so he can take a few each term. So £25 a week is only for fresh/frozen bits for much of the term.

@Heifer I think £25-£35 in supermarket plus possibly a takeaway if feeling flush. Catered meals package at Durham is £81 per week plus friends kids also eat out or get takeaways on top so much more expensive. DD going to get £90-£95 for everything per week. If she has catered that would leave her £9-16 ( for going out, equipment, clothes snd clubs and societies) hence she’s applied for self catered ( fingers crossed)

DD1 lived on @£25.00 a week in her first year doing self catering. There's often very little fridge/freezer space - maybe one shelf for each flatmate. So you can't really buy large amounts of fresh food.
Dd used to stock up on curry packets/ sauces at the Chinese Supermarket. As they tasted better than the supermarket ones.

I'm not sure many students can afford to live on takeaways. But yes catered students often have to. Especially on Sundays.

Mother in Law downsizing and we are buying a flat in Manchester with the money released for DS1 to rent (his course is 3 years in St Andrews, 3 years in Manchester) so she gets income and he has good landlord. I think students are being ripped off by landlords, I was astonished to watch a video by a student saying Manchester was one of the cheapest places to be a student because rent is "only" about £550/month + bills. This "Generation Rent" thing is another of the trials inflicted on this generation, along with Covid debt, climate catastrophy, war in Europe, aging population.

Monkey , I feel very sad for their generation but do have hope for the society they will create when it’s their turn in power. DS and I were talking about this the other day.

Exeter very handily tell you the ratio of applications to places for their accommodation - by far the most popular (4.2:1) is also the most expensive at £8890 and the least popular (0.3:1) is the cheapest at £5066. But perhaps that just tells us about the student demographic at Exeter!

Welcome Harriet

Oh Paddington that's so hard. Such an easy thing to do when they're stressed. Hope she feeling better and the mark is okay.

Hi Harriet & so sorry about the mock Paddington Hopefully school will help with advice & also aren’t mocks supposed to be the time you can make mistakes. I hope she doesn’t take it to heart too much.
Sorry too for everyone going through sendco issues atm. V tough on the whole family. I totally understand the ‘high alert’/ near constant low level anxiety.

I haven’t even dared look at accommodation costs yet. Sounds like it’s going to be v expensive 😢 Our offers so far are Brum & Exeter. Offer holder day in a couple of weeks may throw more light on things. DS doesn’t have a clue yet about what sort of accommodation he’d even go for, if he could choose whatever he wanted.

Aaww Paddington I can see my DD doing that too. Thank goodness for mocks so she can learn strategies from this. I remind DD to double read the question now as this has happened before. She says she often feels like crying - and she's not a crier - but only in exams that are pressurised. I think they build the stress up so much it's the only outlet. Cake sounds like the perfect antidote 🍰 🧁

DD has emailed to request to defer and have a gap year but only to her firm and insurance. I'm assuming that's okay and she doesn't have to ask the other 3 as she'll be rejecting those.

My eyes are watering at the accommodation prices. Dreading this next year.

Mocks are this week for my DD. I'm hoping all goes well but know that things going wrong can be a valuable learning curve. Better for it to happen during mocks than finals!

@AnneOfCleavage where did your dd choose for her firm and insurance choices in the end? And what will she do with her gap year?

We've got about 25 posts left on this one, have made a new thread...please continue to fill this one though.

new thread

Love the title of the new thread @OrangeCinnamonCroissant.

I think someone upthread said that rest breaks could be given by schools without special permission? Our SENCO told me that if we got rest breaks we'd lose one of the other accommodations? My eyes are now narrowing a bit in the direction of our SENCO....