Catered or self-catered accommodation

[questioner123]

Can I have your words of wisdom please to help my DD decide between these two accommodation options?

She is a vegertarian and quite fussy, but hates being around mess and raw meat haha, hence why she is considering catered!

Many thanks everyone

And FWIW I wouldn’t discount UoN on that basis alone - might be massively cutting nose off to spite the face if for all other reasons it’s a good fit

backforgood I am only going off what we were told by the student showing us round. I posted this upthread, but it is worth repeating:

When we looked at Nottingham and asked about self catered flats the student showing us around told us that it was mainly third years and post grad students that stayed in them, and they were much further away from the main campus.

As it turns out Nottingham doesn't have the course that DD wants to do and she has firmed another university.

Thanks VanCleef and Tapas.
She hasn't got Nottingham on her first shortlist, but I was suggesting she has a good look at two or three more as well as the 3 she is keen on, and Nottingham was one of a list of about 5 or 6 I suggested she had a look at what they offer re courses in her area.
Thanks for your help
I will suggest it is something she asks when (if?) she finds a course she likes.

OP. To answer your specific question: As your DD is looking at Wills, I think some of the points about meal times are valid and not every meal is included. My DD didn’t think the food was as good as school but we all knew her school food was of an extremely high standard. It is perfectly acceptable at Wills.

The accommodation blocks in Wills are in groups of 6 with boys and girls separated. They are old fashioned! They are not modern by anyone’s standards. This is why you have to be a little bit hardy to choose the old quad! Quite frankly, everyone gets by! You make friends with your block, adjacent blocks and anyone who is around. You don’t need to cook to make friends and if you are not cooking the same food as the others or at the same time, it’s not very sociable! There are formals at Wills. They suit some people but not everyone. It’s a relatively cheap hall so many do have a few £££ left over for pot noodles and the like but there isn’t space for gourmet cooking! Some will eat out occasionally for birthdays etc. The big advantage is that the kitchens are not left in a mess! My DD was there with vets and medics and they managed to eat in the hall ok.

I would say the students who choose Wills are fairly outgoing and have chosen the hall deliberately. Next year I can guarantee she won’t necessarily live with vegetarians and friendships groups change very quickly in y1. In Bristol it is common to look for y2 accommodation before Christmas or soon after, so friends and flatmates will be very new and they might not choose you! Choosing isn’t one way! Be flexible! Tell her not to be too judgemental.

What course? What are the teaching hours like? Placements? Are they likely to want to work in the library rather than their room?

Stoke Bishop halls are some way from the University. DD had lots of teaching hours and quute a distant placement. Her flat was noisy so she might have preferred the option of studying in the library with coursemates. They also did lots of group work. In retrospect she would have preferred to have been in Clifton or the City Centre. Catered would not have worked at all.

My DS went to Bristol (loved it) and he decided to go self catering. The cost for catered was a lot more, he admitted he wouldn't bother to get up for breakfast would rather have a quick bowl of cereal. So it would only be lunch and dinner, he never regretted his decision he said the catering was edible but not brilliant.

Well if he wasn’t in a catered hall, how did he know what the meals were like, mando?

Medics do go to Wills! They really have no problems in y1. In fact many are at Stoke Bishop. As are vets and engineers. It’s only first year and they don’t do loads of placements!

If your DD doesn’t want self catering, I think has to be Stoke Bishop. It is perfectly ok!

Bubbles, how up to date is your information or do you have more than one daughter at Bristol? Your eldest left University some time ago and is must be closer to 30 than to 18.

DD, now in her second year, was one of the first cohort of a new course which is very vocational with placements starting in the second week.

Yes lots of vets, medics and engineers will live in Wills. DD, who was having to leave at 6.30am once a week to get to a rural placement for 9.00am, felt she would have been better off in one of the more central halls.

Her view. No doubt your DD would disagree, but OP is presumably happy to have a variety of observations.

@BubblesBuddy, he said after his first term he was glad he picked self catering as people moaned about the food and he saw it when he met friends there and it looked poor quality.

Thank you all very much for your replies. DD doesn’t have placements on her course but it is a high workload course, as I assume most are! She is torn as she would like to be close to shops etc., but thinks she will like the social side of Wills hall and not having to cook and deal with mess would be more suited to her. She likes the modernity of the modern city halls though, and there are good comments about having the communal area of a kitchen, being close to the library as she thinks she would prefer to work in a library! Very torn so all your comments are very helpful for her. Many thanks everyone.

Are the modern city halls near the library? They were not near DDs library which was much nearer to Clifton - at the university. I remember DD saying her library was very busy with all sorts of students! She liked to work in the library too.

The swish city halls are very different to Wills. My friends DS chose one so he was near the clubs. There is a club on The Triangle of course - the one the cricketers went to!

There is also a Waitrose on The Triangle. There are plenty of shops in the area near the university. The city centre isn’t frequented much by students unless they want the clubs and booze joints! There are no shops at Stoke Bishop but if you are catered, it hardly matters. DD and friends just carried bits and pieces back on the bus. Bread for toast etc! The advantage DD found was that she could concentrate on studying. No planning of meals, no tidying the kitchen, no one nicking your food and no lugging food back or planning Ocado deliveries.

Yes. DD has left a while ago but as only Xenia and I have actually had DC in Wills I thought I could be helpful. It really is a traditional hall and it doesn’t change! I apologise, OP, if you found my DDs experiences irrelevant as needmoresleep implies.

Hi Bubbles. Thank you so much for your replies, they have been so helpful! Your DD’s experience sounds exactly what my daughter is looking for and catered is looking more promising. Please keep giving your knowledge!!

Are you able to visit Bristol?

Which are the modern city halls she is referring to? I would avoid the town centre unite accommodation tbh. Stoke Bishop is neither modern nor near the town centre I'd stick with wills.

My son was in Wills last year so pretty up to daet. Loved it. His old quad block had a room about 3x the size of his twin's romo in a nearby different halls. he certainly loved the large room, mullioned windows, massive window ledge, loads of space (not modern but I would take masses of space, a quad etc any time over a newer sink).

Neither twin (both of whom were catered in Stoke Brishop) wanted to be anywhere other than Stoke Bishop in year 1. Their sister was also there (Wills newer block) before them and she liked it too. She didn't get a room as far as i remember but had some kind of back up place at Wills, I think shared room or something, and they said just turn up on day 1 and as people change their mind at last minute should be okay - and it was - she had her own room; whereas last year my twins got their first choice of hall - one applying much earlier than the other which seemed to make no difference.

My recollection of Wills (and it will be on their website) is they got 2 meals a day which at weekends was breakfast and lunch and in the week was breakfast and dinner. That was all fine. I am sure I have whinged about all 3 at Bristol over the years about having paid for breakfast and then they might have slept in but that's their look out.

Everyone has different priorities but having meals in year 1 can make life easier for a new student and I would pick by people rather than geography just as I advise to pick univesrities by career prospects not less important things like if you like the look of a building or your auntie lives in the town or your friend went there.

just a reminder, your dd might pick Wills as her first choice but not get a place there. This happened to my dd who got given her second choice in another catered hall. The food is fine, if you are confident enough to enter the dining hall on your own or make a good group of friends to go in with you. The downside is that there is no social place to mingle casually with people on your corridor/in your block. The kitchenette is her corridor is tiny, has just a microwave and fridge. Nowhere to sit. Not having evening meals provided on Saturday or sundays has the potential to make weekend evenings a lonely experience.

Thank you Xenia. That is very helpful information, sounds like Wills it is! Great to hear your DC’s had a good experience there- fingers crossed DD will get it and get the grades of course.

We have been on an offer day but didn’t get a chance to look at Stoke Bishop accommodation as it wasn’t open. We are going to take another trip there soon.

One of my dds is in Wills at the moment and loves it. The Hall is pretty much as Xenia describes. There have been a fair few changes at Stoke Bishop in the last and it is worth visiting while you attend an open day.

A lot of students apply for Wills Hall, but there are not enough rooms for all that apply. I have a second dd at Stoke Bishop who also applied to Wills and she was allocated another hall, but is very happy.

@Bubblesbuddy, it is a tad strange to say only you and Xenia had dcs at Wills.

In catered halls students tend to get to know more people and there is more of a sense of community.

The question I always ask is this. Will she really want to spend time in her first year at uni shopping, cooking, washing up?.... it seems to me that as students have become more studious in recent times, and many more are involved in sport and/or societies, if they also go out out then the first year can be a whirlwind.

I think it depends on the accommodation, and the people. DD's BF is in a 10 person flat share. They have parties all the time with the other flats. He has never had this many friends before.

Well if he wasn’t in a catered hall, how did he know what the meals were like, mando?

Obviously the rules are different at Bristol, but iirc, at Exeter the information about catered halls included prices for non-catered students and guests who wanted to take individual meals there. Similarly at Birmingham, the catering facilities are open to all; non meal-plan patrons (and those whose meal plan credit for the week has run out) just paying cash.

Do at other universities students do get to see 'how the other half lives'. The Bristol system sounds more like a group of separate schools / boarding houses, if you are not allowed to invite guests to eat with you even if they pay.

OP, there is actually some - very nice, from what we saw on the open day - modern (2014) accommodation at Hiatt Baker hall at Stoke Bishop. But it's the self-catered section.

I think it depends on a lot of things.

Firstly: Do you pay per meal/what you eat or do you pay for 3 meals a day? I would have been seriously overpaying for 3 meals a day. I don't like breakfast, and really only need one main meal out of lunch/dinner. Even if you do, if you're in a lab based degree you may find that you can't get back for lunch most days.

Next: How are you at cooking? If you'd do what I would quite happily do and half the time live on a packet of biscuits because it's easy, then you may be better having it cooked for you.
And if you can't cook toast without setting the fire alarm off, you need to either plan on learning very rapidly over the summer, or giving up on the idea.

Sociability. It depends on you and your shared kitchen mates. I liked the dining hall as a good place to meet people at first. I would never have been up for door knocking.
A shared kitchen can be either brilliant or dreadful. I know people that chose to live with the same random set of people because they got on so well. I also now of a flat who never spoke again over lasagne
I think you really need someone in the group who is sociable and pulls everyone together-and everyone to be reasonably compatible.

Distance: How far away is halls from other things you want to do? No point having meals provided if you can never get there for the timing or it's just to far to be worth it.

And lastly how fussy you are. If you'll only eat bread on Saturdays and can't stand any sort of pasta/rice and won't each any meat except chicken and the sight of cheese turns your stomach... you may find the meals half the time are inedible to you, so may be better doing it yourself when you can choose.

I think it depends on the accommodation, and the people. DD's BF is in a 10 person flat share. They have parties all the time with the other flats. He has never had this many friends before.

This was DDs experience. Stoke Bishop is quite hard to escape, and so if you are on a heavily loaded course with regular early starts there can be a tension within the work life balance.

So sorry bevelino! I hadn’t noticed you had joined in! There are a few more Wills parents than I thought.

I think with Bristol, if you list catered, you should get catered. Goldney is always over subscribed. Hiatt Baker was awful until it was refurbished. It’s not new.

To be honest, so many Bristol students live at SB, they do get to do what they want. Not much they want is in central Bristol, so no need to be there. They have buses into the university and back and sharing a taxi isn’t expensive if you need to. Having met many of DDs friends over the years, they never moaned about SB and had actively chosen it.

No one needs to be lonely. You take meals in the hall and there is always someone to chat to. There is also a common room. I do, however, think it’s the type of hall that attracts fairly confident types who want to make friends. They know they won’t be chatting in the kitchen. They do become friends with others unless they deliberately avoid doing so. I feel that students who stay in their rooms would do so in any accommodation. I don’t think there is any evidence to suggest living in non catered gives you more friends. The rooms at Wills quad are big enough for having friends in. Also Wills isn’t a canteen as such. I’m not aware of people from other halls popping in for meals. It’s more like school - just at university. The meals are paid for in advance and it’s not pay as you go. I don’t think Oxbridge colleges have many visitors for meals either but I might be wrong. It’s similar. No one says you won’t make friends at Oxbridge and that’s all catered!

I think Churchill is catered and that might be an alternative.