Uni accommodation dilemma

[dottygamekeeper]

Apologies in advance, this is a long post. DS (19) has accepted his Uni offer, since he already has his A2s, and is currently doing an Art Foundation course, he will be definitely going in September. However, he has applied for accommodation and although some students have not received their uni offers, so cannot even apply yet, already there are no single rooms left on or off campus in uni accommodation. He had intended to apply for a single room, ( and we were given the impression that there were far more single than shared rooms). As there were none left, he had to apply for a shared room, and his second choice had to be, again in a shared room, at other accommodation 12 miles away from where he will be studying.

The uni in question is apparently taking a lot more students this year and so has converted a lot of its single occupation bedrooms to shared bunk or twin rooms. We did not know this when he decided to firm this choice (he had offers from all 5 unis he applied to).

DS is anxious about going away to uni anyway, and is doubly anxious at the thought of having to share a room that was only intended originally for one person, as he thinks it will be short on space and is worried about sharing with someone he has never met before. He is naturally shy and is already stressing that he will have nowhere private to escape to if everything gets a bit much. He is now saying he wishes he had firmed one of his other offers.

My dilemma is - does he accept the sharing offer (I hope he at least gets a shared room on campus), it may all work out for the best?

My feeling is that at least he will get to see what living in halls is like, hopefully make friends and, his room mate could turn out to be a great friend, or at least someone to go with to all the Freshers events. We have been told, that sometimes after the first term, people drop out or find other accommodation, so you can end up in single occupancy of a shared room anway.

My worry, however, is that if he gets allocated a shared room, he will end up miserable if there are issues with his room mate, or if he just finds the lack of privacy overwhelming, leading to problems with his work or worst case, he might drop out.

The alternative might be to look for a house share, so that he could have his own room. Of course, being a new first year, he will not know anyone to team up with to find a house, or might end up sharing with 2nd/3rd years which might not be so good for making new friends in his year. Also, , it will not be on campus, so again may be not so well place for all the socialising.

Added to this we are 7 hours drive away from uni, so it will not be easy to go and look at places. (I was hoping we wouldn't have to jump this hurdle until next year, by which time I had thought he would have got to know the area, found a group of friends to share with etc)

Any advice from mumsnetters whose DC have found themselves in this situation would be very welcome, just to help me get some perspective on this.

Don't much like the empty nest to be honest but it's nice to still be able to help when needed - they will always be our babies! Let us know what the accommodation people have to say.

I shared a room for two years at uni as I did two years in the States. I got on reasonably well with both my roomates but I know lots of people who didn't. These were probably bigger rooms as well as they were designed for two people not one.

I would say the risks outweigh the possible benefits.

It is Falmouth University. I have now spoken to the accommodation office and all the single rooms went on the first day the accommodation booking system opened. DS hadn't accepted his offer at that point, and even once he did, he had a couple of days delay where the system wouldn't recognise his code number, so by the time he was able to apply, only shared rooms came up.

I have spoken to the accommodation office, who tell me that unlike previous years, they won't set up the waiting list now, but will give everyone a couple of weeks to settle in and then ask who would like to be offered any single rooms that come up.

Apparently past experience shows that once people realise sharing is not as bad as they thought it might be, they are happy to stick with the cheaper rent. The Accommodation office said that it takes up a lot of time going to and fro contacting people on the waiting list only to find they then dont want a single room after all. Also quite a few people don't take up their offers, or don't turn up for one reason or another, and in the past they have been able to move people around quite easily (though in the past they did not have enough rooms for the people who actively wanted to share - this year it is the opposite problem).

They couldn't answer my question about whether there would be enough wardrobe space etc for 2 people - apparently in the existing bunk rooms there are not 2 wardrobes but the students are given extra storage tubs to put under the bed (I wasn't sure how that worked, a bunk bed only takes up the space of a single, so not much room for two people's belongings). I am still worried about the lack of space for storage/work. Also the en suites were tiny (as is the norm, I know) but bad enough making space for one person's toiletries let alone two.

I was told students tend to arrange not to be in at the same time, or to stay over at a friend's one or two nights a week to give each other space. They deliberately put people on different courses in the shared rooms so that their timetables will be different, and otherwise just match by gender and age.

Hopefully DS will accept he has a good chance of ending up in a single room eventually (or will find others who want a single room and get a house share). Its not ideal, but I am not sure what else to do. I am just worried about having months of uncertainty now.

I would hate to share but a friend at Glasgow uni in early 2000's shared and loved it.

I shared (in the 90s) for two terms in Halls. It was fine, and I am still friends with my flatmate 20 odd years later, and we shared a house in 2nd and 3rd year. That said, when a single room came up, we agreed one of us would take it. So I ended up with a massive double room to myself for shared rent for a term. Which was great!

I think months of uncertainty is a bit over dramatic tbh. I would explore shared housing if you and DS think sharing might be a bit hard-going, especially if he's off-campus. So long as he has some place to stay, though, it will be fine - so long as he's not locked into a whole year's contract (as he might be with private rental)

How do you feel about it now? I have to be honest and say I wouldn't be too happy. I also think that house sharing in first year isn't a great idea, I only know of a couple of students who did this and they felt too removed from the experience and left university after the first term. I feel for you as I don't know want I would do - maybe contact the current students and see what they think?

We had this and my DC wasn't happy about it. We contacted accommodation services and they said it would only be for a week or so.

Fortunately, It didn't happen and a bigger room was allocated. Think it was just to cover themselves in case more students came than they had rooms for.

Dotty, my dd is at Falmouth doing her foundation, so I may be able to shed some light on what the existing students are doing. There are about 125 on the Foundation course there and I would guesstimate about half are staying on, but spread over Textiles, Fine Art, Illustration etc. Most who have been there a year are now moving onto student houses, which they have already secured. However, there is bound to be some movement in terms of people suddenly deciding to take up other offers etc, so there may be rooms available in existing houses. I'm assuming your DS is at the town campus, but I think all the degree accommodation is up at Penryn. The in town accommodation seems to be reserved for the Foundation students I think? There are some private student accommodation providers (private halls) in Falmouth and I can try to find out the names, so he could be in a hall like flat?

My dd is off elsewhere and I'm not going to miss the six hour drive there frankly!

Agree with PPs. Having privacy is a huge deal for many people!

Thanks all - I think we hope it all resolves itself once he gets there, his course will be based in town, Beachys, but he was hoping to live at Penryn campus to get to know more people, but would have been happy to take a single room in the uni accommodation in town (although some is reserved for Foundation, there are some buildings in town for degree students). My other worry is that he gets allocated the accommodation on the outskirts of Truro - we hadn't realised that was a possibility, I don't remember it being mentioned at all when we looked round.

My DD had a semi shared room . A student had to walk through DDs room to get to hers. I agree that few rooms are shared these days but it may not all be a problem. Friends how much time the students spend in the room. The big problem is miss matched sleep patterns. A night owl and one that needs their early nights. I would ask whether students can rearrange themselves in the block if they find someone they prefer to sleep with.

Durham uni seemed to have a lot of shared rooms when we went to the open day