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.

Cherryblossomandcornflakes - your best bet would be to get your daughter to ask Santander about that directly, I'd have thought!

Usually if they have an existing bank account, the bank just 'upgrades' it to a student account with o/d if required and the account keeps the same number.

DS2 has just been allocated his accommodation at UEA, it feels real now, he really is going 😳

Horsemad not Santander, you have to make an appointment & go in, which is a pain as they have closed all our local branches.

Dd got her en-suite self-catered and a 4ft bed. She’s delighted. It’s only been open a year so all very shiny.

@Mustbetimeforachange very annoying. DS had lots of trouble with Santander when trying to set his up (was not an existing customer).
We eventually got it sorted, after multiple trips to branch, phone calls/emails...

DD is upgrading her bank account to a student account on Thursday (we opened a basic current account when she turned 18 and had to change her savings account).

We're the same Piggywaspushed we don't have enough spares so we need to buy some new things. Apart from mugs, we have an abundance of mugs

Luckily (for dd) my diss and bil are finally.getting around to divorcing after 5 years separated and have sold the family home.
They are.offering kitchen things they don't need to dd for uni so she's going round later to see what they can spare for her.

@Piggywaspushed
I was thinking the same thing but my niece who has just finished at Leeds gave me a lot of information about all this.

Apparently most people don't join these pre-freshers group chats... no need to worry.

She tried to get involved in one before meeting her flat mates and came away thinking everyone sounded like 'saddos' but when they met it was all ok and they weren't'

These 4 ft beds... can you just use double sheets?

Callme, I will be mostly raiding cupboards for DS same as I did for DD Then I can get new stuff here

And re door wedges, DD got a free one in her new student account Santander box

DD had a 4ft bed - you can get small double fitted sheets for them but use a normal double quilt.

Ds did his HSBC application entirely online, and the card and the £100 deposit came through very quickly. (He then straightaway used it for matched betting and made another £60! )

He has seen from his sisters' experiences that it can be quite handy to have two bank accounts - he has an existing Nationwide kids current account - as you might not want to put all your money in your overdraft, and it gives you twice the options for savings accounts/ISAs.

DD has been allocated her accommodation. She was pleased because it's the one she wanted but also concerned as most of the people she's been getting on with on group chat have got different ones. Although I reminded her there is only a handful of people on the chat compared with the amount of students!

She also made me laugh inwardly as she said she hopes there's some people her age. She's 19

@Cherryblossomandcornflakes. Just back from our appointment with Santander to change over to a student account. My DD has had her current account for years too. They have told us nothing changes, the card, account number and sort code all remain the same. The only difference is the free 4 year 16-25 railcard and a free overdraft facility. £250 initially which increases to £1500 once the student loan goes in. You can reduce this amount if you like. There’s also a small amount of interest on balances over a certain amount and some cash back from certain retailers.

I can't get over the cost of pots and pans! Just spent £25 on two really basic pans. Ouch.

@FabTab - I feel your pain. Same here - after review of marking, English lit remains 0.6 UMS below the desired A. Is it just me who thinks it’s a strange setup when 88.4% isn’t enough for an A, especially when the papers are full of evidence that so many of the English Lit grades are actually wrong. I suppose it’s character building - and good practice for disappointing outcomes in the futures.

Is that OCR?

I have just handed in remark form : but he needs 5 marks to go up, so it's unlikely. That said,I am hoping their review of marking will show an unduly harsh examiner to completely fail him on the paper, when the other units were a B and a C. Not optimistic though as it was his hated paper.

@Piggy - Yes, OCR. There may be more scope for picking up marks where it’s less subjective so fingers crossed for your DS. Better to have tried and failed than failed to try, is my approach.

OCR's grade boundaries were so high for English : the mind boggles!
Unfortunately, the Spanish is the lit and film paper : so, also subjective. In any case, I am convinced he wrote a load of bollocks.

I think OCR are pegging their grade boundaries (all very complex) against nationally expected distribution curves. Ofqual does make them do this. And, as many high achieving schools choose OCR for English, this may give rise to such high grade boundaries. Annoyingly.

Just back from Lloyds - even changing from old account to student with same number etc they said she has to have an appt that will last up to an hour. Photocopy of university email didn’t hack it. Apparently there is a PIN that lets them communicate with UCAS track for the proof they need? Anyway big breakthrough was convincing dd that a day off work didn’t mean lounging around. At least student finance has now been advised of change in university. But concerned about it taking up to 6weeks through. York open day tomorrow. Hoping I can convince her to discuss her Ed Psych report about her learning difficulties with the Student Disability stall. At least to find out what we do with it. Not entirely sure whether we’ve got the right report that the uni will recognise.

If you log on to Track, there are codes for the banks on there.

Dd said there was a four digit number on track (after ur has changed to unconditional) that is for the bank account (?) I can’t access track to check so I only going on what she’s told me.

She has a job interview on Monday - the place she’s been working has just shut down ... they owe her £300 which we’re now trying to get hold of She says it’s a good job she didn’t get remarks cos with her luck they’d take off 20 & she’d lose her place! Could write a blues song about her life atm!