Bristol Uni - accommodation issues

[hellsbells99]

For those of you with DCs applying to university soon, you may want read this article:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/10/english-university-offers-student-accommodation-wales-running/

I know DD's friend went there 3 years ago and had to share a room for about the first 2 months - she put Bristol as her insurance choice I think.

To allay the panic-mongering: applicants who accepted and were confirmed in their places for Bristol as their first choice are assured of accommodation. The squeeze is for those who came through Clearing or as their insurance offer.

Edinburgh states in its accommodation brochure that insurance applicants will be offered shared rooms and not as a temporary measure.

Newport!! Jesus wept.

Despite the warning, Edinburgh has provided single en-suite accommodation at a decent price for my DS who has gone as an insurance candidate. It was even one on his list of options! Maybe their warning helped keep numbers more manageable? I wonder if the lower numbers of A and A stars this year mean there are more insurance candidates at some universities who just aren’t ready for them.

My DD had Bristol as her back up and didn't make her first choice. She managed to get a place in halls ok. However she did the IB and got her results way before the A levels results were out so that would have helped.

My two at Bristol and their older sister who was there all had Bristola s first choice (and got their first choice halls and no shared rooms) so it seems from the article people like that - with Bristol as first choice - are not affected.
It is just clearing or second choice people who are affected, which is not surprisng and has always been an issue with university.

Yes, my son's friend who had Edinburgh as his insurance also got a single room. We were worried about the shared bit as DS had it as his insurance too, but fortunately he got his firm.

My Ds didn’t get halls in Bristol - it was his insurance. We knew there could be a small chance he wouldn’t get them, but he was assured he would get priority housing as he’s got a disability. Priority is looked after/disabilities then distance.

He filled in the halls application correctly, ticked the disability box, but something must’ve gone wrong. Ds was in a FB group of 1st years without halls, he wasn’t the only one with disabilities who had not secured halls. We live over 300 miles from Bristol, and know of people who applied during clearing and live closer, without a disability, and they got halls.

I know that the accommodation had a priority waiting list for halls and ds got his offer earlier this week.

I wonder if many of the dstudents offered Newport will decide not to go and take a gap year instead? Accommodation doesn't have to be by any means perfect for university to be a good experience, but that is unlikely to have been what those students were expecting when they chose Bristol as insurance/clearing.

So interesting about Edinburgh - I remember making a mental note about the shared accommodation problem with putting it as insurance, which as it turns out would have been unfounded! (wasn't an issue in the end as other reasons for not putting it on the list)

Meant to add lemon - sorry to hear about ds' difficulties. Has he now been offered halls in Bristol - i wasn't sure from your post? If not, can he go back to the office and make the point about his priority?

He's now been offered proper halls in Bristol. He'd been in contact with the university and was all set to defer if he didn't get allocated halls.

He was first told to apply for halls in Newport (27 miles) or the vet campus (14 miles). For the vet accommodation he would have had a free 60 min bus ride into Bristol, plus 30 mins to campus. Last bus 'home' at 6pm. Newport was just a free bus pass from the station in Bristol to the campus.They were also going to put on a 3 day event to help students find private accommodation.

In halls you get 24 hour support, pastoral and maintenance. i think that's vital for the first year at least.