Applying for Uni 2019 entry, parents support thread

[Decorhate]

Now that they are back at school, working on Personal Statements, doing the final Open Day visits, I thought we could do with a new thread...

@Monkey2001 we had the same conversation with the admissions tutor at Newcastle that you did. We went on a campus tour on Friday, and fortunately, he was free and gave us an hour and a half of his time. He told DD that she would get an immediate offer and wouldn’t look at her personal statement.

Great - I hope that made her feel happy! DS has put it as his 5th option as the people were really nice.

Two of DD's cousins went to university in Newcastle, and she got loads of advice from one of them yesterday. It looks like Newcastle is going to be number 1.

Thanks for the advice

.... and the course and labs looked good and Newcastle is a great city to be a student in - lively and affordable.

Did you look at the accommodation? If DD already has the grades, she will be top of the list and get first choice. We thought it was quite variable; did not like the new blocks, but there were some that he really liked. I can look my notes up if she did not see anything for which she had a strong preference.

Ooohh didn't know about this thread! Got two DDs in year 13 .... haven't looked at any unis, both putting their head in the sand a bit, neither have got a clear goal about what they want to do. Which I don't think is that unusual! Is it!?! gulp. So I thought no point in pushing uni unless it's being driven by them ..... big debt etc. However, since going back to school they seem to have put more thought into it and we now have a visit to Lincoln lined up and also Portsmouth. Mocks not great so I hope if they like these unis it will give them incentive to work harder.

"Did you look at the accommodation?"

We didn’t have time. We didn’t expect to see the tutor, who was great, or expect to spend so much time with him. We had only paid for 3 hours parking. DD says she will look at a VR tour on the website.
The tutor was pleased that DD had the grades in all the right subjects, and also had the right grades at GCSE for English and maths. Your notes would be very much appreciated – thank you.

Ah sandy : my kind of person at last !! Welcome to my world ... although I think my DS is worse! He is adamant that we are not going to Derby on Saturday, and I haven't even told him about the 2 hour subject talk !!

If DD already has the grades, she will be top of the list and get first choice. That would be logical, but was not the case for my niece who ended up being allocated the most expensive accommodation at Birmingham despite being first in the queue - my brother still can't work out why that happened.

Unless they've changed it recently, that is how it works at Newcastle - they go by the date your offer is made unconditional. So if you've got the grades in hand, you go on the list the date you firm them. Dd accepted an unconditional from Newcastle, and had her her first choice of accommodation (Kensington/Park terrace - very nice imo) confirmed in June.

DD has looked at Leicester and Loughborough for Aerospace Engineering so far - liked Leicester but loved Loughborough which has given her a bit of a boost with a plan for working towards the grades needed. She went with friends for both visits so I'm feeling a bit redundant... We're doing Nottingham Trent and Sheffield Hallam in a couple of weeks so I'll be doing the driving for those.

We gave up looking at accommodation unless we had time at open days, the prices are on line and we found they were much of a muchness too. I’ve probably been to too many by now though anyway, with two in two years going.

Does anyone know the approx cost of student accommodation in halls or does it vary for each uni, in which case for York?

From York website

www.york.ac.uk/study/accommodation/undergraduate/

www.york.ac.uk/study/accommodation/rooms-prices/

I found this when looking at accommodation today. It might be interesting for some - www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/top-50-student-accommodation-halls-uk

Price and standard of accommodation varies wildly within each institution and between them. Variables include on campus or off, en suite or not, catered or not, spanky new or old and tired. Each website will have accommodation pages with pictures, videos and prices. NB some require you to vacate in Xmas and Easter (a consideration if you are far away), some don’t and length of contract may vary

And generally speaking private rented accommodation in 2nd year onwards will feel like a bargain in comparison

Not sure if it's been mentioned or not but there's a group on Facebook with things like accommodation costs around the UK. The difference is remarkable, it's

m.facebook.com/groups/488235648182391

Hope the link works

Itsmeaga1n If your DD firms York, she will be offered a place on offers day, we did 3 of them, Hull, Scarborough and Lincoln, at all 3 whilst our Ds was doing course work and sample seminars, we as parents had talks on accommodation and student Finance and their costs. At Lincoln rooms started for shared, non ensuite at £4400 and most single ensuite where £5200 to £5800/year. 41 week contract, £131/week is what he is paying. Student finance works on once you firm your choice you get a 4 digit UCAS number, you then apply to student finance using that number and state your choice of university and your course. They agree to pay the £9250 straight to university, and ask for the parents last year's income. On that they decide your DD maintenance, benefits/NMW gets maximum of for York £8430 (London is £11002) and the minimum loan is £4331. For September 2018 to July 2019. At Lincoln once you firmed them, 24 hours later, if firmed on a Saturday you get it Monday, a unique university ref number and a link to their accommodation site, and you where able to choose up to 6 halls, in preference. please note most universities now seem to guarantee halls of residence to 1st year students

Thanks ... not sure why I couldn't find that page That's a lot!

@LoniceraJaponica and Atia it was Park Terrace that DS liked best too. Nice rooms, well located for the med school and for getting into town. All en suites at Newcastle were the same price unless they were deluxe, Kensington Terrace was best and Park Terrace was much nicer than the new, very brown and rather soulless towers. We also looked at one near the Law dept which got a firm thumbs down!

Park View was the modern one he did not like and Leazes Parade was the one he really did not like near the law school.

That's great Monkey. Thank you.