A warning to anyone applying to St Andrews

[MissPiggy5]

Can I please just warn any of you that have offspring with applications in to St Andrew's of the ridiculous situation and bun fight that happens in February of the 1st year, to find accommodation for the 2nd and subsequent years?

We have just had a horrendous time with our gorgeous DS, who got into St Andrews as his insurance choice after very narrowly missing out (0.5% in one paper FGS) on a place at Cambridge. Please let this tale of woe be of guidance to all those out there who are deciding on any offers received and how to 'play' the Firm v Insurance choice lottery.

First of all, being English doesn't help - no real surprise there. DS received his A level results mid Aug alongside everyone else, but a month after the Scottish students receive their Highers results. Net result: he was allocated his 'guaranteed' accommodation on a take it or leave it basis. This was not the mid-range but still expensive halls he had applied for, but the absolute top of the range catered, en-suite flat that is let out to golfers over the summer. We had no choice but to accept with Uni start on 6 Sep, just over 2 weeks after A level results so are now paying £7500 for 2 semesters - 1 Sep 14 - 30 May 15, which is actually £1000/month.

Being of middle income, so getting no help with anything, we asked DS if he could possibly find somewhere cheaper to live next year as paying this amount is not sustainable for us.

Next comes the horrendous 'releasing of lists' by local estate agents on 1 Feb to coincide with the 7 days that re-application for halls is open to current residents. What a nightmare. Our poor, unprepared DS spent the best part of a week both day and night chasing his tail. In brief, the vast majority of the university's students are from wealthy backgrounds and they actively recruit from such places as California; this obviously drives the local economy especially regarding private housing. Maybe its the Kate and Wills effect, who knows? The estate agents are shameless and seem to be running a cartel. There were queues round the block to book viewings with literally hundreds of students applying for each available house/flat. Most require multiple references and interviews to even get a viewing and then, even if they're luck enough to be successful, large deposits are being demanded to secure the property. Not only that, there are no properties available at all anywhere in the area from 30 May due to the golf so students don't even have the option of staying locally and getting some summer work.

The situation got so bad this month that there was a demonstration yesterday to demand that the University and local council take action. There's also a petition which will be sent to the Principal and Vice Chancellor at link. Even if you don't sign it, please read the comments left by students and parents alike; it makes for very worrying reading.

www.change.org/p/professor-louise-richardson-accomodation-and-business-services-tell-us-how-the-university-plans-to-address-the-potential-accommodation-crisis

The situation for us now is that DS has re-applied to go back into halls, self-catered this time to save a little money, but the bill is still going to be £6200/year, which is much higher than the rest of the UK but still cheaper than private rental. There is absolutely no guarantee he'll get in, and if he doesn't I have absolutely no idea what we'll do.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I really wish I knew all this a year ago as I would now be having a very different conversation with DS about his options once his offers came in.

A rather distraught and angry Mum.

Sorry- X post!

I just asked my husband (as I wasn't sure) and he said you could do what Hakluyt just said, but he did a four year degree that was an MA (or actually an MChem) and doesn't include a Bachelors. So it seems there are different routes, confusingly.
Sorry for the derail anyway.
Hope you sort out the problem OP.

Then there's the whole cheaty thing going on at Oxford too cosmic, where you can cash in your BA for an MA simply after a period of time, without doing anything at all. That's a real con, but fools no-one reading cv's (certainly not me :)).

Sorry - cross posts!

cosmic is talking about the scientists who do four years with the first three years doing what amounts to a bachelors and the fourth year in labs/ doing a dissertation. That's a proper bachelors/ masters combo. The cheaty thing isn't, obviously, but the St A four year degree is more like a foundation year plus a bachelors.

OP thank you for publicising this, it is scandalous. Other cities that have had huge increases in student populations have addressed the issue. Indeed in Leeds they have put up high rise halls to prevent the student market completely dominating the private rental sector. My DD chose not to apply to St Andrews because of the distance but we had no idea of the accomodation issue so it is there but for the grace of God go we. Now at a university in a similar small affluent city she has a choice of properties for her second year all around £400 per month.

merrylegs I am also a parent of a DD at a London university and though at around £650 per month rents are comparatively expensive, something you can research ahead easily enough, the actual search for flats is a lot easier than at other universities. It is not a market dominated by students. There are plenty of properties available and you can search at your leisure in the summer holidays. Yes you encounter dodgy Landlords and grotty properties but that can happen anywhere and at least you have plenty of choice if you are looking in the usual student areas, Camden, Holloway, Dalston, Clapham etc. as opposed to Chelsea.....

Molio - unfortunately it does fool people reading CVs. A survey was done a few years which showed that 62% of UK employers did not realise that an Oxbridge MA was not a real postgraduate qualification.

ganesh yes that's like us, dh is an academic but we don't live in the town. Much much cheaper to live outside and parking is still surprisingly free for staff.

Also, on the ma thing, it's not a proper masters in the same way an English ma is. I still needed to do a one year MLitt before my PhD.

merrylegs I would add that London students also have the advantage of the University of London Housing Services and the similar set ups within each university. We had a slightly surreal issue with a Landlord (not one likely to affect anyone else anywhere) and the standard of legal advice and proactive support the flatmate's received, including their university's Head of Accomodation attending our meeting with the moron Landlord, was better than we could have paid for from a private lawyer. They have a mission to facilitate students with their accommodation issues regardless of means, have an unsurpassed knowledge of the market and law affecting students letting properties in London and are the only university to act as guarantor for disadvantaged students who would not otherwise have anyone with the necessary means. Clearly the OPs son has no such source of proactive support.

I went to St Andrews. I couldn't afford the rent so lived in Dundee, it was less than half the price. I ran a little micra to get there and back.

It depends what you can find - my DSis lives in a huge 4 bed flat right at the end of South Street for £430 a month. They did have to promise they'd live there from second year to the end of fourth year though.

Much more than I used to pay in Edinburgh, but she gets a lot more for her money - when looking around flats there, poky 2 bedroom ones weren't much cheaper, so she said she'd rather pay the £40 extra a month to live somewhere nice!

One option (for a science degree) is to do an integrated masters with a year in industry - you have a year of (almost definitely cheaper!) rent elsewhere, pay reduced tuition fees, and earn a salary.

Another thought MissPiggy - Erasmus exchange in your DS' third year (to somewhere with cheaper accommodation!) - obviously not the usual reason to swap for a year (or term) but just saying in case it's worth your DS' consideration.

FWIW - and she's in a much bigger city - DD sold her contract with a student accommodation provider, moved into a flat and successfully advertised for another flat-sharer mid-term; all within three weeks. If your DS' nerves could stand it, he could save two months rent by looking at the beginning of August (before results day).

Useful sites might be: Gumtree
Spareroom

Thanks, OP & others who posted useful info here. Like others, I've found this very enlightening. DS is in year 12 so will be looking at uni's this year. I didn't even think about factoring accommodation costs into the decision so I'll tell him to add it. I just figured most accommodation costs outside of London would be similar. Also, I was planning to discourage him from applying to any Scottish uni's due to the fact that he'd be paying fees when many others, including EU students won't (which I learned on mumsnet & think is scandalous). This thread has added the 4 year (not really an) MA to that which makes you realise going to uni there is simply more expensive. I'd heard a Scottish MA wasn't the same but didn't understand it's basically a foundation plus a BA.

My mums 4-bed in St A will rent for £1700 for the next academic year. That's with its own front door (i.e no close), a small outside space for washing, a living/dining room with a kitchen off it. Not horrendously expensive for what it is, although there's only one tiny bathroom. 5 mins walk to the Shell garage

ganeshamouse well it does a positive disservice as far as I'm concerned, if it's put forward as something of substance, as it was in a cv I had to score recently. Especially since the academic criteria were central to the post....

It's not as simple as it being a foundation plus a BA. Most Scottish students don't go to uni after S5. In my day we would do CSYS in our subjects in S6, which were pretty equivalent to A levels. So I did English and Politics in first year uni, after doing CSYS English and Modern Studies.

I think the whole student accomodation thing is a racket.Ds didn't get deposit back last year so we had to pay again this year. £200 admin fee non refundable we pay that too plus he started 1 October but house year runs from 1 Sep until 31 July so first month not there. And he finishes this year on 6 June so has to pay 7 weeks even though he will be home and he has to be home as he has a job here!

I heartily agree noddy - so many greedy landlords, IMO

Primal it's simply the easiest way to characterise it. The main thing is that the difference is in the first year, not the last, and that it's not a masters equivalent.

I have a St Andrews MA. It has proved very useful to me in the past. . It involves slightly more work than an Oxbridge MA- but is in no way equivalent to a proper worked one. I did two extra first year subjects- that was the sum total of the "slightly more work" I mentioned!

I am sorry Noddy but are you referring to university owned accommodation? Because if you are not then surely you are talking about the rental sector in general, and most students have to rent for a whole year, and experience the same issues eg admin fees, guarantors etc. as anyone else. So it sounds as if a September to July rental is actually a concession to the student market, unless they can be sure of letting through the summer.

And under the deposit protection scheme a Landlord has to have a good reason to withhold the deposit and you can negotiate to get it back unless your son and his flatmates trashed the place. As a postscript to our surreal experience with an incompetent Landlord they tried to withhold the deposit, it turned out because they had not placed it in the protection scheme. Threatening them with the legal and financial repercussions of failing to place the deposit in the scheme / return it without good reason soon focused their minds on keeping within the letter of the law and the protection in place for tenants.

Clearly there are good and bad Landlords and serious issues with the protection in place for Landlords and tenants, part of our problem was down to the Landlord's failure to secure a guarantor for one of the flatmates but he thought he was still able to chase the rest of the guarantors for the rent when that flatmate lost the plot, with no consequences for himself. However the rental market is what it is for everyone involved and I do not think students are any more vulnerable. I think it all comes as a bit of a shock to parents who have not been involved in it for many years.

If indeed your son trashed the previous property but expected his deposit back, and expected to have a rental agreement just for the period he needed it perhaps it was the Landlord on the receiving end of unreasonable expectations ?

£200 admin fee though!

The Scottish MA/BA thing is a bit weird.

Don't just write one off as not being 'proper' though!if you see a masters from a Scottish university! If you do five years you'll have a masters that's exactly the same as a four year English one.