what university provides nice and high quality living experience

[tropicalfish]

Following on from the interesting St Andrews thread, Which universities/towns provide the nicest/easiest accommodation for their students. I am looking for a university for dd that provides good overall experience in the time that they are there also taking into account whether they are able to meet friends through their place of residence. Am very interested in hearing of peoples experience good or bad.
TF

Ds is in London and has a catered room in an intercollegiate hall. His friends include a medic at UCL amongst others. Ds has settled well and has enjoyed the experience, much more than I thought he would. The wide variety of courses being studied across all the UOL has greatly widened the opportunity to meet like minded souls. They go to each other's room for drinks, or a bag of chips as a pp mentions, yes of course the rooms are small but there is always someone in the common room. It appears to me that it has encouraged a wider range of friendships rather than just a flat of 6-10 people. But that is just my opinion based on what Ds says.

Liverpool is well rated for Medicine and students have a good experience in the city. It's only 2 hours 10 on a fast train from Euston. Plus there are lots of lovely Liverpool mumsnetters on hand in times of emergency

Totally agree accommodation should be way down the list of factors - feels a bit superficial tbh. My brother ( and indeed uni friends) had v different styles, types eg catered halls vs freshers house, old, new , shared rooms etc and tbh it mattered a bit but most ibis offer a bit of flex with these alternatives. Let her get into the uni she wants first to do the best course for her.
Maybe it's a new thing but my parents didn't get involved apart from discussing options at home - I did all open says etc myself and most open days they still show halls and let you talk to current 1sy years

One thing that medicine applicants may want to think about - a friend of ours (GP) said that many medicine graduates tend to end up living in the same region that they studied, as that is where they have their contacts. Worth bearing in mind if you apply to East Anglia!!

DD is living at home, because the accommodation cost on top of £9K a year, is ridiculous when she only has to be in two days a week, and the uni is commutable from where we live. Do feel she's missed out on the 'uni' experience though.

Would agree with others that it should be the course which you get right first. Also the type of accommodation should come down to personal preference and personality. DD is in her first year and opted for a room in a six bed flat in halls and for her it has been brilliant for her as she is quite quiet and found it easier to get to know people when she was cooking etc alongside them. She has also made a lot of friends on her course which this year has involved a lot of working alongside other people in groups on projects. She also joined a society for a hobby and met other people there.

She didn't want to be in a big catered hall. Other thing to bear in mind is to be open minded about accommodation. DD had two equal offers and chose in the end the uni which had a first year accommodation guarantee. But said uni massively screwed this up, and realised only after A level results came out that it could not meet this for all students and as we live withing 20 miles of uni ( just) she was given an offer of sharing what should have been a single room in a catered hall which she turned down . She was lucky in that she got on the phone to all the non uni halls and eventually a week before term started one of them had a drop out and she got in.

Supposing that OP's kid wanted to do something bog standard, like English or math.

I think the cheaper places to live are also the easiest ones to live as students. So Loughborough is better than Bath, or Sheffield is cheaper than York, etc. If it's touristy and naice, it's probably harder to get affordable accommodation.

DS's both went to Nottingham Uni & lived in catered halls in their first year. They made lots of hall friends because there were about 300 of them for dinner which made it very easy to gravitate to people they really wanted to be with.
Both made friends really quickly & went on to share houses with them (DS1 had met his housemates he went on to share with in his first week at uni & is going to be best man to one of them next year, ten years after meeting at freshers week)
As far as medicine is concerned my work mates son had no interviews & no offers last year. He applied post A level results & has received 3 offers this year & hasn't heard from his fourth choice, so if it's your hearts desire to study medicine it must be worth giving it another try post A levels.

Supposing that OP's kid wanted to do something bog standard, like English or math. I think the cheaper places to live are also the easiest ones to live as students. So Loughborough is better than Bath, or Sheffield is cheaper than York, etc.

But for maths, in particular, Bath is significantly better than Loughborough. A student applying for maths at Bath wouldn't usually be comparing it with Loughborough but with Durham, Warwick, Imperial, Oxbridge, ...

UEA is a campus uni that offers medicine, and has the hospital 10 minutes walk away.

Uilen, OP was asking about quality living experience. There are heaps of league tables for academic rankings ; a league table about quality of living and social experience? I haven't seen that yet.

Anyway, which do you think is the best quality living experience, and why: Durham, Warwick, Imperial or Bath?

There are some discussions around which Unis have best night life,
(and here),
mostly northern, but not the same I think as what OP meant.

(I went to a Uni that was supposedly No. 3 in the state for partying, I couldn't have cared less!!)

I had friends who enjoyed doing medicine at Bristol (and others on vet course amongst other subjects) A good student city I think which to me is what OP is asking. I think she's just taking an interest in her dd's overall Uni experience which I think is not only fair enough, but very sensible.
I'd think somewhere outside London would be a sensible thing to aim for, as a slight preference - as I think you said getting offered any accom in London might be tricky since you live there?

Thank you very much for all your replies.
I suppose, I would like to know if there are strong negatives to any available options in terms of where you choose to live, in terms of cost or quality. Any places that offer a substantially lower standard of living or are so expensive.
It is an important consideration that you tend to end up living where you make contacts, which makes sense.
I have taken note of peoples comments about tailoring choices of university based on personal strengths.

I guess next hurdle is AS levels.

I have to agree with everyone else - the accommodation really is a very minor thing on a 'choice' list, particularly for such a competitive degree as medicine.
IME, many, many universities have different types of accommodation anyhow.
I don't think catered would be great for medics, as they are so soon out and about, traveling to practices and hospitals for placements, and not necessarily "in" for their meals at regular times.

Why not try to narrow it down to a short list, then either ask on here if anyone know those particular places, or have a nose around the student room for opinions.

It goes against a lot of people's preconceived ideas, but Oxford and Cambridge are actually amongst the cheaper places to study from the accommodation point of view. The colleges try to let out accommodation for conferences in all the vacations, so students only pay for term-time. This is in marked contrast to most student accommodation, which often has to be paid for for a whole calendar year in the private sector. I think the rates are cheaper too.

Most colleges can offer accommodation of some sort for at least two years. My son's college is able to accommodate all its undergraduates all through their degrees if they want - it's not compulsory - but the vast majority do stay in college accommodation because it's cheaper than the private sector, and it's also very comfortable and clean and convenient. Students can also eat in college - the food sounds reasonably good and it's very cheap.

Another important point is that the libraries are so good that students don't have to buy many books and there are often college grants to help out there.

Also, both universities have a lot of financial support available for students from lower income families. This is particularly important because they strongly discourage students from taking on part-time paid work while studying on the grounds that they just won't have time for everything.

Of course, getting yourself into a position to take advantage of all this is not a walk in the park!

Agree Mimsy. Brave of you to mention Oxbridge and medicine in the same breath. Won't be long before someone turns up to say it's not 'hands on' and the research is crap :) FWIW DS is living in what looks like a very plush hotel (brand new build) with all the usual college facilities at a very reasonable cost and of course the whole system facilitates the making of friendships.

Hi Molio,
What college is your ds at?
Does the course structure and type suit your son or is he thinking with the benefit of hindsight a differently structured course would have been better for him.
TF

tropicalfish, I'd be surprised if Molio is happy to reveal her son's college on an open forum.

Yes that's right Mimsy, he'd be absolutely livid. It's pretty well known for medicine though and pretty itself, I don't think that gives much away :) But I can answer the question very easily without naming the college since the course isn't college dependent. No OP, he's absolutely clear the course suits him completely but it's been hard work but then I guess medicine at most places is. He's staying on for clinical so that suggests he likes the place in general as well. I know that lots of medics opt for courses other than Oxford and Cambridge though, so it's something that your DD might want to weigh up, since with her grades Oxford at least is clearly an option - whether Cambridge is will depend more on AS.

Molio,
Does your son think that his college is better for medicine or does he think all the colleges are equally good?
.
TF

Oxford or Cambridge. The college rents are genuinely not that bad in comparison with many other "expensive" places because you only have to pay for accommodation during their very short terms and it is, in fact, heavily subsidised by the colleges. You don't have to pay for public transport because you can walk/cycle everywhere. And the social factor is second to none if you can ignore the rahrahs.

Cambridge is very good. I think everyone is guaranteed a room and you stay within the halls in your college, so feels like a big family, plus you all eat together too.

Consider Exeter - which also has a campus in Cornwall - a beautiful place to study :)

His college undoubtedly is good in the quality of medical teaching and support and scholarships tropicalfish, but I'm not sure DS is in a position to make a judgment about other colleges at all.

The college rents are genuinely not that bad in comparison with many other "expensive" places

absolutely, although I'd hazard a guess that there are not many universities where the hall / college costs (as opposed to costs in the private rented sector) are less than those at Cambridge (or Oxford). Plus for DS's college at least although fully catered you only pay for the meals you actually eat

medicine applicants often don't get any choice!
also please remember that GCSE and a level perform ance
do not correlate necessarily