Going to university (2019/20 academic year) - finance, flat shares, friends old and new and freshers' week to come...

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Following on from thread 8 which filled up in just 72 hours.

marking

Hello!!

Tomorrow’s task du jour is a shopping list! Second time around for me but DD is self catered whereas DS was catered so feel there’s more to think about this time!

Marking

Hello! Exciting times ahead :-) I have a very random question, the halls my DD is going to has extra long single beds. Where on earth can you get fitted sheets for a 3ft by 6ft9inch bed? TIA x

Thanks for the shiny new thread NewModel.

Gosh the last one filled up pretty quickly

I think Thursday ranks with the most stressful days of my life so far. I'm only just getting over it all now

Thanks @NewModelArmyMayhem18. I used to slavishly follow the Trump threads but some of them went so quickly they could be lost track of very easily, especially over on AIBU.

My next duty is driving dd to the open day at York Tuesday. She's caved in and said she wants to look round. I don't suppose you've been sent a timetable yet have you @FrameyMcFrame?

Absolutely place marking with pride!
I'm loving reading everyone's excitement and anticipation rising!

DS and I opened his UnderGrad Bank Accs today. Looking for Book lists for his course and Durham have got his checklist up to work through before starting including his online enrolment etc.

This does not apply to us as DS is traveling back every night, but noticed on checklist that students should get enrolled in GP surgery/Dentist etc. If not up to date to make sure all immunisations are as Meningitis is common in University. Hope not to worry anyone but this is sadly true.

Interesting what I'm learning reading through all of this, DS ain't at all bothered and gone on FIFA with his friend before they all depart across the country on their journeys!

Annoyingly, although I believe DD's maintenance will be given in 3 equal installments, her rent is nowhere near equal.

She's in York, £5800.
Approx £2400 Oct, £1500 Jan and £1900 April.

No idea why.

Accommodation allocation is on Monday at Newcastle. Seems cheaper than a lot of other places but of course Dd wants en-suite! She doesn’t at home but it seems the thing to have at uni. I’d rather have a washbasin and bigger room.

I’ve been lurking on this thread and over at the student room. Over there I’ve seen it said that students can have copies of the Edexcel Maths papers for free. Has anyone here heard about this?

The 'needing' an en suite makes me smile - when they share a house the following year, they most likely won't have an en suite then!

We didn't get chance to see all accommodation. We saw the most expensive and then cheaper ones. So my son has put the most expensive as first choice, the cheaper buildings and bathrooms were badly in need of replacement. I think I've given him too much comfort at home. Now I've found he won't get the full loan I'm regretting letting him put that choice first. I'll have to pay for it.

A lot of the options for DD were either catered shared bathroom OR self catered en suite. She doesn't want fully or part catered all week/year and would like the novelty of an en suite as we certainly don't have one at home.

Which halls does she like the look of ZandathePanda?

As DD already had her A levels, and needs special consideration for her CFS she got her first choice.

Marking.

Bowbear, my DS has been allocated college accommodation with beds which are 210 cm x 90 cm. I ordered a mattress topper from France on eBay (be quick- there's only 1 left!!). I got the mattress protector to go on top, from Amazon and today I bought a double flat sheet from Dunelm- the double size is just about long enough.

Shopping list tomorrow he doesn`t have to go to work till 3pm. He is seeing a lot of Monzo cards being used at the bar, so asked about them, everyone likes the fact that they track your spending and alert you to overspend. Like a tap on the shoulder if you like. It does look interesting. Anyone on here have one?

monzo.com/

More here.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/17/monzo-facebook-of-banking

I’ve been lurking on this thread and over at the student room. Over there I’ve seen it said that students can have copies of the Edexcel Maths papers for free. Has anyone here heard about this?
Yes, Edexcel allow teachers to download them.

Thanks for the info on rice cookers. He’d be cooking Japanese rice so it’s (a) a bit more fiddly in a saucepan, and (b) the timer/keep warm functions on electric cookers are really helpful.

As for finances - if you’re expecting them home at the term breaks, I think it’s only around 30 weeks of actual on campus time (although rents will be 36-40 weeks as you rent over Easter and/or Christmas)

So if you pay for accommodation and they have even the minimum loan of £4100, that’s £125-130 a week over 30 weeks. Seems too much. It is a much simpler way to do the math if you just go ‘oh we’ll pay the rent’ but it will cost you a lot more over the 3-4 years

Tapas Park View though Dd said the unconditionals may get first dibs. It does make me laugh about ‘needing’ an en-suite too. I would rather have 2 doors between me and any shower-room stuff! My thing was having a bath to soak my poor back in.

Thanks Must

I hope she gets in Zanda. That's where DD is going. It's handily next door to the medical building.

Over there I’ve seen it said that students can have copies of the Edexcel Maths papers for free. Has anyone here heard about this?
Dd's asked for the further maths. She's 2 marks off the boundary, and one of the papers she thought she'd done 6 marks better compared to the unofficial grade boundary, so she's going to look at it and see if it's worth a remark.

We started shopping yesterday. She's not feeling too well tonight though, which I suspect may be stress catching up with her.

Dunlurking it's great news that your DD is going to the open day on Tuesday.

DrMadelineMaxwell my DD also has ensuite/self catering - apparently those rooms are like gold dust . . . .

DD found her timetable today (York Maths) and seems to have a lot of free Friday afternoons which has gone down well!

We have done some online shopping today with some Tesco club card vouchers that I have been accruing for years. We found that we could exchange them for 3 x the value to use on the Denby website and that there's quite a lot of stuff that's 50% off on that site so she's got Saucepans, cutlery, crockery, glasses, baking trays, utensils from there.

It's a bit daft really having decent stuff for uni but as it didn't cost us any actual cash because we used the vouchers I figured it was a good idea. We used to use the vouchers for other things but they have really cut down what you can use them for recently.

Not really sure how we are going to fit all of this stuff in our car to take it up there but I guess we will worry about that when the time comes. At least she's been allocated a room where she doesn't have to move out at Christmas/Easter, so will be able to come home on the train I think.